Shifting Life
by Treewater
Summary: Kakashi is a Shifter, bound to a human Sakura. He loathes the very air she breathes, and his frustration with her only escalates when she offers to escort a knight, sworn to kill all shape changers, back to his keep. AU medieval Kakasaku Yamasaku
1. His Mouth Waters Over Her Throat

A/N: Please don't kill me! I like working on different things at the same time, and this just came to me one day. This is a very AU story, so again, don't kill me. It takes place in medieval times, with Kakashi as a shape shifter and Sakura as his master and they absolutely HATE each other! Yeah! I know this first chapter is a bit confusing, but it's supposed to put you right in the action without much explanation—later chapters will delve into the past a bit more. Feel proud of me: I'm the first to center a medieval story around Kakasaku, I checked! I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I do, however, own this story.

**Shifting Life  
****His Mouth Waters Over Her Throat**

"No! No way! There is absolutely no way you will get me to go into another city. Sakura!" The great silver wolf trailed behind, hopping about like a mad thing, swinging his head from side to side and snarling occasionally, his crisp white fangs augmenting the silvers and whites of his own shaggy fur and offsetting his bicolored eyes. He hopped about thirty yards away from a young woman with pink hair, directing his verbal attack towards her as she walked nonchalantly toward the great stone walls of Ishi City with a traveler's pack slung over her right shoulder.

"Come on, Kakashi," she called over her shoulder, gazing into his upset bicolored eyes with intensely calm and (to the wolf) aggravating green ones.

"No!" He stopped hopping, braced himself against some unseen force with his stilt-like legs held stiff and rigid, and snarled ferociously at her.

She continued walking. "Suit yourself!" she called, and the wolf's snarl died away to be replaced by a sudden fierce yelp of pain. He jumped and twisted in the air, snapping at the force he had braced himself against, then loped after her, tail tucked under his legs.

"That hurt, Sakura," he whimpered, then his voice regained fervor as he snarled, "Why in Kami's name do we have to go into another wretched city?"

"If it bothers you so much, Kakashi," Sakura replied coolly, "then stay outside the city limits."

"You know I can't do that," he said, lowering his head. She stopped, rounded on him suddenly, and kicked her booted foot straight into his ribs. The blow set him snarling again as he backed away slightly, hackles raised, black and red eyes both gleaming in the noon light.

"Then choose a form, hide your necklace, and get on, already!" she snapped. "Otherwise make yourself useful and change into a horse or a pack mule!"

"You want me reduced to a sniveling pack ass?" Kakashi snapped. "I think not." With that his form began to change, growing lither and leaner as his paws flattened and gave way to hands and booted feet, his jaws to a slender face obscured by a dark blue mask. The necklace that hung about his neck, a small arrow-like pendant on a leather thong, was carved so that it resembled both arrowhead and wolf's head, and he stowed it underneath the shelter of his fur-lined cloak. The necklace that marked him as a shape shifter, hidden from those who would take one look at him and pull a sword through his heart. It was why he tried to avoid cities at all costs.

He glared at her with his eyes narrowed as he followed along, rubbing his bruised ribs and wishing all the while that he could somehow break free of his bondage to her and dig his fangs into that supple little throat of hers—had he been as a wolf his jaws would have dripped with slaver; as a human his mouth merely watered at the thought.

"You know I loathe your ancestors for binding my family to yours," he said lowly as he drew shoulder to shoulder with her. He stood at least a head taller than she, if not a little more, with shaggy silver hair in stark contrast to her silky rose pink that fell in straight lines to her shoulders, sometimes wavy if she spent the night with it braided.

"You've told me, yes," Sakura said. "It doesn't change the fact that you are bound to me, through and through, and have been bound since my grandmother performed the rite."

Kakashi's expression darkened still further. "I was but fourteen," he growled. "But a juvenile and they bound me to a babe."

"You'd best keep talk of that quiet, protector of mine," Sakura said sweetly. "The city draws near, and you wouldn't want the guards to hear you ranting and raving like only a shape shifter could, would you?" She smiled at him, a threatening twitch sparking in her face.

Kakashi stared at her with shock and not a little bit of fear in his eyes. Had he been as a wolf he would have cowered at her feet belly up, pissing all over himself at the implications of her words. "You wouldn't tell them," he whispered hoarsely, "of what I am?"

"Oh, of course not," Sakura said, staring straight on again. "I would lose the protector given to me at birth, and I wouldn't be given another one. It would be a shame to waste you."

Kakashi bristled, fear forgotten. Spoken from the mouth of a butcher, like he was some slice of meat only fit for feeding the dogs. But she had complete control over him. If he stepped out of line once while in the city, if he strayed too far away and yelped at the invisible chain strangling his heart like a patch of thorns, if he changed once, even if only for a flicker of time, he could rest dead and assured that twenty some-odd arrows and five sword points would be through him in an instant.

Shape shifters were not well liked in the Land of Fire. Worse still, they had been driven to near extinction by the king's knights, and if there were any truly left alive besides those bound to Sakura's family, Kakashi didn't know of them. All he knew was that his was a hated breed, used only for disguised protection by those that saw him as a toy to be used at will, a weapon, a pet.

Sakura was one such human, forcing him to risk his neck each time he stepped within the city bounds, each time the itch that told him it was time to change forms struck up within the vision of an outsider. Each time, when he ignored that itch and the sharp pain of demand swept through his body for a new form, he walked the edge of life and death.

He hated it, and he hated Sakura for it.

"Stop glaring at me," she said as a horse-drawn cart passed them and the driver waved. The city walls loomed high overhead as they made their way down the dirt track toward the gates. "You're such a sourpuss."

"What do you need in the city?" Kakashi asked with clenched teeth, waving as casually as he could to one of the gate guards.

"Oh, just some supplies." Sakura shrugged her shoulders. "I thought we could spend the night."

_What?_ he screamed inside his mind. _Does she _want_ me killed? I can't hold this form for that long!_

"Oh, don't give me that look. It'll be at a nice little tavern and you can drink yourself silly."

"And then accidentally change and cause everyone to scream and shout and come after me with swords drawn?" Kakashi snorted, eyeing a table that was, in fact, selling weapons. The violent little monster in his head longed to reach for one and kill the woman next to him, but he knew that would kill him too. Her grandmother, the old hag who hardly looked more than thirty that had cursed him to eternal servitude, made sure of that, warning him against trying anything stupid and branding his arm with a tattoo that reminded him every day of who he was forced to follow. He could never get over the fact that where once he had been free to hunt and challenge other shape shifters to duels and fights, now he could no longer even hunt unless Sakura was willing to help. The only way he could release his energy now was from traveling, and it was just another thing he hated.

"Okay, then we can have absolutely mind-blowing sex if alcohol doesn't suit your fancy," she offered instead, and the violent little monster in Kakashi's head vomited all over the place.

He snorted again and said, "I'd rather give myself up to the king than touch _you_ in any way."

"Am I really all that bad?" she asked sweetly, that threatening trill in her voice making Kakashi want to cower at her feet again. She had a way of beating him when he got too close or said something she thought was stupid, blessed with her grandmother's monstrous strength, and him cursed with his wolfish instincts to not put himself deliberately in harm's way. Wisely, he kept his mouth shut.

"Hmm, I thought so."

His mouth watered again, and he mentally slapped himself away from thoughts of tearing her limb from limb. _Don't kill yourself, Kakashi,_ he warned, bottling a low growl within his chest before it could escape and alert others to his very un-humanlike presence. _Don't let her kill you like this. You've still got your damned pride, haven't you?_

Yes, he had pride, but it amounted to nothing compared to Sakura's whim, and it and his dignity often died harsh deaths whenever he crossed the lines she set for him.

The day passed with relative ease, however. Sakura picked up the supplies that she needed and helped Kakashi steer clear of the king's knights which were patrolling the streets, and that was all he really cared about, anyway.

"I'll need to set up a stand at a junction once we leave the city," Sakura said as they made their way through the city center. "We're running out of money."

"Right now we need to find a private place where we can bed," Kakashi said uneasily. "I'm getting a bit itchy." The itch had sprung on him as they left the winery down the ways a little bit (Sakura was a sucker for a good flask of wine, just like her grandmother), and hadn't left for quite a while. Slowly the itch had left his chest and spread, tingling, up and down his spine, longing to reshape it into something new and unfamiliar to the human body. A snake, perhaps, or a deer.

His movements slowly became jerky after Sakura nodded and began speeding along with him toward a low-rising tavern just out of market. Dull aches began to ripple up his limbs, and he knew that the outrageous pain of resistance would soon follow and force him to change, and if that happened here in the open, he would be dead before his forelegs hit the ground.

"A room for two, please," Sakura was saying earnestly to the tavern owner, and he slipped her a wooden chip that marked the room as hers. She led Kakashi upstairs to the room and flung open the door for him, where he hit the floor as a bobcat, scrabbling against the planking beneath his feet.

He allowed himself to change again, back to a human, and put his head in his hands, sighing with relief. "I hate it when you keep me out for so long," he commented, his shape trembling again as he allowed his wolf form to take control. "Do you know how often you put me on the line when you do that?"

He went through several more cycles of changing before finally setting down as a cougar with his tail wrapped keenly over his paws.

"Train yourself to keep your forms longer," Sakura said simply, flopping down on the bed. "I keep you out for so long because you keep me _in_ for so long. It's punishment, you know. You're not the only one who hates being bound to another."

Kakashi glared at her. "No shape shifter can hold a form for more than six hours without crippling himself into a chimera. Those winged abominations that we see in this world: griffins, dragons, bat-hounds and panthers, they were all shape shifters at one point. It's a fact that men don't know. That's why _they're_ allowed to live free." He added a scathing note to his last sentence, curling his lip angrily.

"The king only hates shape shifters because he sees them all as Shades," Sakura said, staring back at him coldly. "The knights see you as a Shade, a black-blooded wraith of the shadows."

"But shape shifters have red blood, just like humans! We didn't choose to be the cousins of those black-blooded man-eaters!" Kakashi protested, and bit his paw roughly to prove his point. Blood, the color of a dark rose, leaked into his silvery fur.

"Don't do that," Sakura snapped. "People will see your hand tomorrow if it bleeds and wonder. Besides, the knights are too stupid to acknowledge any of that. They'll see your necklace or they'll see you shift forms, and they'll be after you with Shadebane."

Kakashi shuddered. He'd been bitten once by a snake that carried Shadebane in its fangs (that's where the knights got their own poisons from), and while Sakura sucked it out before it became lethal, Kakashi had been feverish for the next week, shifting sporadically and uncontrollably. They'd been confined to a small traveler's cottage because of it.

"Be grateful," Sakura ordered suddenly from the bed. Kakashi glanced at her.

"Why should I?" he growled.

"My family saved yours from the fires the old kings called for, and we save you from Shadebane today."

"At the cost of our freedom!" Kakashi snapped. "I would rather die a free beast than be kept alive an enslaved one! The rite is worse than death itself!"

"Is it? I would assume Shadebane to be far more painful than the rite," Sakura said quietly.

"What would you know? You were but a child," Kakashi replied scathingly. "_You_ should be grateful to _me_, I who became your forced nursemaid until you were old enough to help me hunt. And Shadebane isn't poisonous to _man_."

"I suppose not. Try to get some sleep, Kakashi. We'll be out of here tomorrow." She turned her back to the shape shifter, used to his anger, and slowly fell asleep.


	2. His Leg Drips With the Blood of a Knight

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to hikomokushi, the first reviewer of this story! Thanks, Hiko! Sorry I've been slow on the updates, guys. My writing muse hasn't been very helpful lately and seems to think that a forested smut scene would be excellent in every single one of my stories. Of course, there are two problems with that: one, I don't write smut. I write art. Two... uh, there was no two. I added the two for dramatic effect. ; But as you could probably guess, that single vision of Kakasaku smut is getting in the way of a lot of things. Anyway, I hope you enjoy! -beats muse with a wrench-

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I do, however, own this story.

**Shifting Life  
****His Leg Drips With the Blood of a Knight**

_Kakashi opens one eye blearily to gaze at the woman standing over him. She has a large, overbearing bust, unnatural, he generally thinks, for a woman of such an otherwise petit frame, but he has never known her without such a large chest. She has sandy blonde hair that she keeps tied back in two pigtails, and a purple diamond emblazoned upon her forehead. Kakashi has often wondered if this is what keeps her young, because he knows she is old, as old as the horizon._

What..._ he thinks slowly, feeling a dull throb cycle through his system when he attempts to sit up. _What happened? Why is she here? She shouldn't be here, not in my den.

"_Kakashi, don't move."_

_He heeds her orders despite (or perhaps because of) his confusion, and instead he tries to speak, but no words come out, only a throaty growl from deep within his chest. _H-how..._ he thinks. _How long have I been asleep?

"_You've been out three days. You've been changing in your sleep—don't worry, you're not a chimera. You're lucky you haven't been hearing Sakura fuss."_

Sakura... she's that baby... the bindings... the rite... The rite! _Despite the throbbing that pulsates through his body Kakashi snaps bolt upright and stands as a human after some effort in trying to change out of a wolf's body. He staggers for a moment, then finds a wall to lean against. This is not his den, not the cool cave that has been passed down through his family from generation to generation nor the sweet golden fields that as a snake are excellent for sunbathing. No—this is a human room, complete with rice paper walls and wooden floorboards, smelling clean and crisp and totally unnatural._

"_My father..." Kakashi says quietly, mostly because his throat is sore and swollen. "My father... where is he?"_

"_Dead. As is Shizune. The birthing killed them both. It is not uncommon in my family."_

_Kakashi snaps his eyes up to gaze at the woman before him, the woman who has branded him, the woman who has enslaved him and made him the tag-along of a baby. His body is still feeling the effects of the poison the rite has induced upon him, his arm still raw from her carving the tattoo into his flesh, his chest still aching where the binding chain has entered and taken hold of his heart, and all that only serves to amplify his hate for her, because he has hated her since the day he himself was born._

"_You're bound to her, now, you know."_

"_To a baby," Kakashi growls. "I should kill her!" The mere thought of sinking his teeth into the baby lying in the crib next to him sets his mouth watering, and he does not try to hide it. He allows fangs to grow inside his mouth, glistening with his slaver and hanging over his lip so that Tsunade can see, so that she can be intimidated..._

"_I wouldn't try to," she says calmly._

"_Why not? Wouldn't it gain me my freedom?" he asks bitterly, narrowing his dark eyes as might a panther before the kill._

"_No, because it would kill you as well. But, if you were killed first, she would not die, do you see?"_

_Kakashi says nothing, though his eyes widen slightly with his shock._

"_It is to keep you shape shifters in line when working for us," Tsunade continues simply. "You value your lives too much to risk them so recklessly. Equality doesn't suit you and all that. There's always some hierarchy going." She shrugs, but Kakashi hears the smugness in her voice and bristles for a moment._

_He looks down at his hands, shaking from a fatigue that his three-day sleep seems to not have cured in the slightest. "I've been reduced to a nursemaid, then," he whispers. He touches his uncovered face, runs his finger along his slender jaw and the long fang that protrudes from his lip, wiping the wetness of his finger on his tunic. "Then I shall punish her," he snaps suddenly, pointing accusingly to the child lying in the crib next to them. "She will never see this face!"_

_Tsunade glares at him. "Why?" she asks curiously. "Why would you deny her that?"_

_Kakashi smirks slightly. "For a Haruno to see his or her protector's human face is sacred, is it not? It has been so since the first of us were bound," he says scathingly. "If she never sees mine, she will know that I hate her, and will hate her until the end of time. If she denies me my freedom, I deny her privilege! I am in charge of her, now, after all."_

"_How do you plan on hiding your face, Kakashi?" Tsunade asks, raising one eyebrow._

_A dark blue mask quickly diffuses into existence over Kakashi's face, hiding it from Tsunade's view. "Shape shifters rule their own dress," he says calmly. "Your granddaughter will suffer through my hate, Tsunade."_

_Tsunade sighs. "Very well. I suppose it is a just punishment for the pain of the rite and the loss of a loved one. But I warn you, Kakashi"—her eyes narrow dangerously—"you are not in charge of her. She is in charge of you. You will be subject to her whim until the day you die, and the bindings will keep you from killing yourself, to be sure." She watches as Kakashi fists his shirt front angrily, his necklace dangling over his hand. The soreness there is keen and sharp. "You will be attached to her—the chain will allow you to go no more than one hundred paces away, and then it will tighten around your heart like thorns. Is that clear?"_

"_Like crystal," Kakashi growls, then Tsunade leaves, leaving him with the baby. He stares at her for a while. "Little bitch," he murmurs, before he lies down again as a small cat. "I would... kill you..." But the poison is still running rampant through his system, and before he knows it, he is asleep once again._

The dream was no dream. Kakashi knew this for a fact. Sakura did not remember that horrible, eye-opening day—she was far too young to recall anything. Even if she had seen his human face at some point in time before he had hidden it permanently from view, she would not remember it. All she had to place her trust in now was its fine silhouette, and that was never much to go off of. Kakashi also knew that she was uncomfortable around him when he was as a human, simply because of the fact that he wore his mask and that he would not remove it for her. She keenly felt his hate, that much was certain, and he reveled in this fact. If his fangs could not reach her, his feelings most certainly could, and he was dragging that pitiful advantage as far as it would go.

Truth be told, it didn't go very far, but however far he managed to take it, Kakashi kept it there. In all honesty, he didn't like his human form either—the only good thing about the frail, otherwise useless human body were the thumbs. A human had no fangs, no warm fur, and bones so brittle that the smallest of falls could break them. Kakashi much preferred his wolf form: the strength of his clan ran through his wolf's blood, and though he often had to pose as Sakura's dog, he felt much more pride in his bright silver pelt than in his pale pink skin.

So it was no surprise that as soon as the city gate guards were out of sight and Sakura and Kakashi were on the road once again, Kakashi changed from a human to a wolf, tall and lean, with paws the size of a man's hand outstretched, the tattoo on his arm hidden beneath his long fur. His necklace, too, was hidden beneath the fur of his neck and chest, nestled safely away in the confines of his own protection, far from anyone's view.

During the night, Kakashi almost always remembered things like the dream from the night before. They reminded him of his hate for Sakura and her family, stoked the fires, kept them strong. He would cycle through the past twenty years, and when he reached the present day, he would start the cycle over again. The rite, to the discovery, all the way to the now. In a vicious type of way that only someone of his caliber could manage, Kakashi loved it. It was one of the very few things he loved.

"Here's where we stop."

_She_ was most certainly not one of them.

Kakashi muttered darkly under his breath about lack of exercise and how did she expect him to protect her when he was too high-strung to pay attention to what was going on around him?

Sakura sighed heavily as she laid a blanket out on the side of the road junction they'd stopped at. "You know, Kakashi," she said, sounding annoyed, "how can I expect you to protect me if you're too tired to even lift your head? Why don't you just run around in circles or hunt sparrows or something if you need the exercise so badly?"

She wasn't kicking him? Something must be wrong. He slunk over to her in as defensive a position as he could, head and tail low as he sniffed openly at her face, at her mouth, and at her breath for signs of sickness. She pushed his nose out of the way as she pulled several small jars from her pack and laid them out on the blanket.

"I'm not sick, you flea bag. _I'm_ tired, okay?"

"Why are _you_ tired?" Kakashi asked, sitting down on the edge of the blanket with his head cocked to one side in interest. The jars she was taking out were full of herbs of every sort. Like her grandmother (though Kakashi begged to differ about Tsunade's occupation), Sakura was a healer. Unlike her grandmother, however, she traveled the lands selling her services. She was a popular healer—business on the road was surprisingly good, depending upon where they camped, and luckily her excuse for having a menagerie of animals (really just Kakashi) was that she was good with them and they came and went as they pleased.

Oh, if only that were true.

"I had a nightmare last night," Sakura said, lying down to stare at a sky that was slowly beginning to turn orange and pink.

Kakashi lay down beside her, his head hovering near her own, the inquisitive look still on his wolfish face. "About?" he asked, flicking his ears impatiently.

"That Shade... Obito."

Kakashi stiffened. He would be damned if he didn't remember Obito, the Shade that was responsible for Kakashi's own red eye.

"I thought you said you didn't remember much about that day," Kakashi ventured tentatively, resting his head on his paws and laying his ears down flat.

"I remember him," Sakura replied. "I remember him kissing me, I remember you carrying me, and I remember you getting hurt."

Kakashi snorted and raised his head up again. "So why would that be a nightmare? You kick me in the ribs all the time, Sakura. You don't consider that _pain_?"

"I don't know. Obito was just scary when he changed. I was younger then, remember?"

"You were fifteen," Kakashi said in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. But there was some sound in the distance then that made his ears prick up. He stood, legs quivering with anticipation. They sounded like hoof beats coming from beyond the rise. He waited and watched as a tall, brown-haired man astride a dark brown horse trotted blissfully down the road. Kakashi could see the Knights' Insignia branded on the horse's hindquarter and immediately felt his blood begin to boil. How he _hated_ knights, and as a wolf with a tired Sakura on his paws, Kakashi could get away with practically anything.

But Sakura sat bolt upright and watched as the knight came down the hill. When he neared the little "shop" she had set up, he pulled his horse to a halt and regarded a snarling Kakashi with a steady, diamond-shaped eye.

"Your dog doesn't seem to like me very much." He had a deep, baritone voice that rang out almost as though he were a king of the forest. He was dressed in the traditional knights' green vest, navy blue shirt, gloves, and navy blue pants and sandals. The Knights' Insignia, along with being on the hindquarter of his steed, was also emblazoned on a silver headband. Kakashi often joked with Sakura about the idiocy of the Insignia—while it was widely known it was supposed to represent a leaf, it quite looked more like a snail. This particular knight also wore a metal cheek protector and a mask that only covered his chin.

The smell of him was one of moist wood. Kakashi curled his lip high above his gums, his hackles raised, the snarl emanating from his throat very real. If he could get away with killing and eating a knight, so much the better for him.

"Kakashi, sit down, you mangy scrap," Sakura snapped, standing up and swatting Kakashi across the rump. He growled, but did as he was told, sitting upon his haunches with his back ramrod straight.

The knight hopped off his horse (which was eyeing Kakashi warily, though the wolf had no interest in it) and bowed to Sakura, taking her hand and kissing it lightly. A growl burbled out from deep within Kakashi's chest. The knight looked up at him, dropped Sakura's hand and returned to his full height. There was a small smile on his face.

"Don't worry, mate, I'm not here to steal your girl."

Kakashi bristled slightly at those pretentious words. The knight seemed to notice, for his smile faltered and he glanced at Sakura somewhat worriedly.

"Is he always like that?"

"He doesn't like men," Sakura giggled. "He's very protective of me."

_Only because I have to be._

"Ah, I see." The knight bowed again. "My name is Captain Yamato Tenzou," he said. "What, if I may venture so far as to ask, are your names?"

At least the bastard had respect enough for a dangerous animal to ask for his name as well as his master's.

"My name is Haruno Sakura," Sakura said. "This is my dog Kakashi."

"Ah, so you're the famous healer," Yamato said, bowing once again. "It's an honor to meet you, Miss Haruno."

"Please, call me Sakura."

He raised himself up and smiled again. "Sakura." He nodded briskly.

For several heartbeats, Kakashi calmed himself and looked from Yamato to Sakura, his gaze steely on both of them as they smiled tightly at each other.

Then he was gripped with the sudden instinct to give Yamato absolute and utter hell. He was a knight, after all. He deserved it. With a snarl of astonishing volume, Kakashi opened his jaws so that Yamato could see every single fang in the wolf's mouth, all of them dripping with wet. Kakashi's crisp gaze bored into Yamato's stiff one, his hackles raised even while he still sat, hunched and waiting. Then his body coiled tightly and he lunged, snapping at Yamato's ankle. The knight quickly danced his foot out of the way and kicked Kakashi soundly across the muzzle, merely intensifying the snarl as Kakashi grabbed his pant leg and pulled him down to the ground.

All too soon Kakashi found himself a few feet away from Yamato and Sakura, lying on his side, a harsh ache ripping up and down the left side of his rib cage. She'd kicked him. Very, very hard. Whimpering slightly, Kakashi made to stand, slightly dazed and with the breath somewhat jostled in his lungs from Sakura's blow.

"Don't kill yourself like that, you mangy scrap!" Sakura shouted angrily, storming over and grabbing him harshly by the scruff of the neck, twisting her fist so that if felt like the skin would rip. He cowered into the ground, shying away from a pain that followed his descent. "He's a knight, god damn you! Show a bit of respect."

Knowing that a use of words would be improper at this time, Kakashi let out a series of shrill whines and whimpers, and when he yelped as she twisted further into his scruff, she finally let go. He followed her back and lay down in the center of the blanket with his nose tucked under his tail.

"I'm so sorry about that!" Sakura said, helping Yamato to stand. "Kakashi really, _really _doesn't like men." She laughed slightly.

"Perhaps I should leave?" Yamato offered, brushing himself off.

"No, don't!" Sakura replied. "Look, you're bleeding. I can fix that."

Interested, Kakashi looked at Yamato's left foot. Sure enough, blood oozed freely down his lower calf and was dripping into his sandals.

Sakura smiled again. "I want to see how deep that is before you go off anywhere."

Yamato smiled back. "Yes," he said. "Perhaps that would be best."

_Keep your distance, Kakashi. Sakura's right—don't kill yourself like this. Control yourself, dammit!_


	3. His Body is Scarcely His

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to beautyinsleep, an ever faithful reviewer and reader. Your reviews make me smile, Beauty! Anyway, sorry for the late update. In this chapter I go into more detail the behavior of the chain which binds Kakashi to Sakura. Mature for themes. Enjoy! 

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I do, however, own this story.

**Shifting Life  
****His Body is Scarcely His**

Kakashi watched in silence as Sakura tended to Yamato's wounded leg right there on the blanket. She had his calf rested in her lap as she cleaned the wound with a cloth and water, squeezing out the blood into a small pan whenever the rag became soiled. The smell was just as foul as Kakashi imagined it would be—the corrupt blood of a corrupt knight now dirtied his tongue. The rusty tang of it was horrid in his mouth, but there was no river near here, and Sakura subtly refused to give him water. He knew it was his punishment for attacking Yamato in the first place, but he had no innate desire to atone in any way: he lay in the center of the blanket with his gaze fixed unblinkingly on the knight, warning him against making any sudden movements. Judging from Yamato's frequent glances his way, he recognized and was heeding the warning.

"It's not very deep," Sakura said as she worked. "Really just a graze. I kicked him out of the way before he could do any real damage."

"I thank you for that," Yamato said, wincing slightly as Sakura began numbing the wound in preparation for stitching. "I can't afford to be out of commission. I have to return to the castle in a few months' time." Twilight was coming on fast, casting everything in shadow, and Kakashi hoped powerfully that Sakura would miss with her needle and stab Yamato in an artery or something equally as vital.

"Really?" she asked, threading her needle. "What for?"

"Oh, just reports. I'm a reconnaissance man."

"Ah. Sounds interesting."

Yamato laughed. "Not really," he said with a smile. "I just take stock of everything and report it to the king."

Sakura looked up, and Kakashi flicked his ears. "You report directly to the king?" she asked eagerly, but Kakashi recognized her front. She wasn't eager. She was worried. Kakashi would have to be extra careful not to shape shift while around Yamato if he reported directly to the old man.

Yamato nodded.

"Kakashi," Sakura said after a quiet period in which she worked on Yamato's leg, turning fully to the wolf with stark command in her voice. "Get lost for a while, will you?"

Kakashi narrowed his eyes at her and growled his defiance.

"I mean it," Sakura snapped, standing up and pacing towards him threateningly. Suddenly fearful, Kakashi leaped up and hopped a step back with each step she took forward, guarding his ribs and scruff with a twisted defensive stance. "I don't want you hurting Captain Yamato again. There's a hill right over there." She pointed to a small steep rise only a few meters away. "Go hunt rabbits or something."

When Kakashi continued to stare at her, crouched in his defensive stance and unsure whether or not it would be wise to break it, Sakura raised her foot threateningly above his head. He yelped and scampered over the rise, thankful she had chosen a location so close to it to bed down. It was easily less than a hundred flat paces away from her—while it took him several hundred to climb up the rise and back down, in actuality he felt no tug on his heart-chain and judged himself to be about sixty paces away.

For a moment, he wondered how Sakura had known he was beginning to itch, then he brushed the thought off as he scratched himself behind an ear with an outstretched claw, already transformed into the paw of a wildcat. She, after all her years spent in Kakashi's presence, knew how to judge the length of six hours—really, with all things considered, it was quite simple. The day was divided into four quadrants for him, each one dominated by a different basic shape unless he chose to change again in between the itches and pains.

After about an hour of lying amid some tall, rough grass and watching the night with a lamp-like gaze for any mice that might pass his way, Kakashi began to wonder what exactly was going on over the hill. So he changed into a garter snake and wove his way back to the blanket, where the sight before him made him want to vomit (which, thankfully, in his current form, he couldn't). Yamato and Sakura were kissing each other passionately, groping awkwardly at each other with their human paws. Kakashi vaguely wondered how much of Sakura's wine they'd both had before Yamato suddenly reached down Sakura's body and pressed his thumb in a place he probably shouldn't have.

Kakashi stifled a gasp, accidentally changed his form into that of a small goat, and tumbled back down his side of the slope where he lay, shuddering, on the ground.

_That bitch,_ he thought wickedly, hardly able to move, _this is why we must both remain celibate!_ But his thoughts scattered as another wave of the pleasure his master was experiencing channeled down the chain and into his own body, setting him writhing again. Kakashi hated human pleasure, especially when it came from his master. It made him feel positively _female_ and more often than not feeling that his privacy had been extremely violated. So all he could do while Sakura and Yamato continued their stupid human love-dance was twitch and writhe while Sakura inadvertently sent her pleasure to him through their bond.

It was then Kakashi realized, after the first wave of pain hit him and he clutched at his now-human abdomen with his forehead touching the ground, that up until this night, Sakura had been a virgin. That virginity, Kakashi thought with narrowed eyes—he winced as a second pin-prick of pain struck him where it struck her—was no more.

For three hours, this pleasure-pain cycle continued. Kakashi was constantly shifting as though that would contain or release the chain tying him to Sakura. First there had been the goat, the human, then came the deer, moving as though wounded, when he collapsed as a human again and then became a gray fox. On and on, the rhythms that the two humans put out becoming faster and faster and Kakashi's shifting moving in time with them. It became fast to the point that his fur patterns begin to blend together—leopard spots grew long and shaggy, then coarse like scales and long like feathers—and his bones were crackling with his haste like a bonfire. It hurt. It really hurt. A shape shifter was never meant to shift so quickly: it was but another way to become a chimera, and an uglier version of the wait-more-than-six-hours one.

Finally, in a desperate attempt to get them to stop, Kakashi raised his head—a wolf's head, if anyone was looking—and held the form long enough to let out a long, low howl. He bit back a scream as one final wave of pleasure struck him, sending his mind reeling and his shape blurring into something more surreal before it solidified into his human form. His vision blurred sharply. He couldn't keep his footing. He fell on to his back, panting, frothing at the mouth and with his mask pulled down to his chin to allow that froth to escape. His body ached from the amount of shifting he had done in such a short time frame, and all he wanted to do was sleep.

_I would... kill you..._ His eyelids fluttered shut.

"_Kakashi, let me see your face!" she pouts, pulling her wrist out of his grasp. She is twelve years old now, a naive maiden that Kakashi loathes with every fiber of his being. For the past twelve years, he has hidden his human face. Today will be the same, and he will continue to conceal it._

"_Absolutely not," he growls._

"_Why not?" she asks, plopping on the ground, forcing him to stop in his tracks. He knows he cannot stray too far away from her or the chain around his heart will torture him like tongues of flame torture a redwood tree: allowing it to live, yet feasting on its insides._

_His dark eyes narrow as he looks at her, with her long pink hair tied back with a red ribbon and her succulent neck out in the open for him to see. Sometimes he feels like she teases him without knowing, sometimes he feels like she teases him but she _knows_. She knows that it hurts. Her grandmother has told her, and Kakashi has been present for the telling. His mouth begins to water. How he wishes he could just kill her and rid himself of her presence, but he can't._

"_Because I hate you, you little shit," he snaps. "That's never going to change." He turns and begins striding purposefully away._

_She frowns, looks like she's about to cry, then turns her nose up toward the sky. "I'm not moving, Kakashi," she says hotly, but he doesn't care to listen. At a hundred paces, his knees buckle and he clutches at his heart. When the pain does not subside, he scrambles back within the circle and glares at her._

"_Listen, brat," he says, panting slightly, "you said you wanted to spar. We're going to a place where my father trained me. Do you want the privilege to go there or not?"_

_She hops up. "Yes! I want to go!" she yips, and bounces after him._

_The walk is long, and he leads her through the forest for several hours. The day grows dimmer. Noon becomes evening. Evening becomes twilight. Sakura knows better than to complain of hunger because she must see that Kakashi is hungry too. When she feels hunger, he feels hunger. But when he feels hunger, she does not. It is unfair, unrighteous, but he can do nothing for it but follow at his master's heels._

_Finally they hear the crashing sound of water, and through the trees Kakashi can make out the distinct pattern of the waterfall he knew as a child. The crystal falls cascade down a wall of granite and splash into a foaming pool far below the source. Moss and grasses grow in abundance. The place is surrounded by trees with thick, broad leaves, and the sunlight that is now only kissing the horizon does not reach this place. It is dark here. Kakashi will teach Sakura to see in the dark tonight._

"_We'll camp here for the next few days. Come help me hunt," he says, and he turns into a lean silver cougar. His cat eyes quickly locate a bird's nest, where a mother hawk is brooding over her eggs. Sakura's gaze follows his own. "No," he decides, "wait here."_

_He slinks up the stone face of the waterfall, careful to be quiet lest the bird sees him, and when she finally does, it is much too late. She begins to fly away, but he leaps out from his position and grabs hold of her wings with his claws, her breast with his teeth. They fall together into the deep pool below._

_Kakashi drags himself out, soaked, with the hawk still in his jaws, then drops the bird in front of Sakura and goes for the eggs he left behind. The nest is easy to grab hold of in the hands of a human, and he carefully carries it back down under one arm._

_He is still soaked, his silver hair weighted down with icy water, and he shakes himself out onto Sakura. She squeals in indignation because he puts out the spark of flame she managed to ignite on the moss. He stretches out as a cougar again and watches her from where he lays on his side._

"_Can you see?" he asks after a while. The fire is small, but it is steady, and Sakura is now feeding it small sticks._

"_Because of our bond, I assume, yes," she replies. She sounds more wise than normal. "I can see like something of a cross between a human and a cougar, and if you changed, it would be something like a human and whatever you changed into."_

_Idly, he transforms himself into a human and begins plucking the wet, sopping feathers from the dead hawk._

"_You can have the hawk," Sakura says, looking at the bloody mess with disgust. "I just want the eggs."_

_Kakashi shrugs, settles down as a wolf, and begins to lick the carcass free of blood. Sakura wrinkles her lip as she cracks a hawk egg over a slab of stone and sets it over the fire._

"_We'll spar in the morning," Kakashi says between sickening crunches of bone. Hawk blood stains his chest and muzzle. "It's not wise to fight on a full stomach."_

The morning came all to quickly for Kakashi. The bright light penetrated his eyelids and he raised one arm to over his face to shield it from the sun. He wiped his mouth free of the froth that it had acquired during the night, then changed into a wolf and stretched. His lower abdomen hurt quite a lot, right in the place where Sakura's sex would be, and he winced as he raised himself up. This would be uncomfortable, to say the least. He would be limping for the better part of the day.

Dragging himself up over the rise, he trotted as unassumingly as he could toward the blanket, then paused at its edge. It smelled like sex, and Yamato and Sakura were wrapped up within its folds, naked as the day they were born.

_Disgusting,_ Kakashi thought, altering his vocal chords slightly to allow a deep bark to resonate from them. It woke Yamato up with a start. The knight rolled over to stare at the wolf, then settled back down. Kakashi barked again.

"Agh, what do you _want_, Kakashi?" Yamato groaned, covering his ears.

_I want you to die,_ Kakashi thought crossly. _I want you to die for making disgusting human love to my master._

"Mmm, Yamato..." Sakura was pressed into his chest, and she curled her fingers against his skin. Yamato turned back to her and kissed her shoulder.

Barking wasn't going to get their attention, that much was obvious. Kakashi let out a snarl, a big one that clearly said, _"Get up, damn you, or I will rip your sexes off with my teeth!"_ It almost sounded like a roar, and it quickly got the two humans up and scrambling for their clothes. Yamato's horse reared and neighed at the sound Kakashi had made.

"_Shut up, horse," _Kakashi snarled to it in a language neither human would understand, _"or do you want me to eat you?"_

It calmed down, but the whites of its eyes were still clearly visible and its withers were twitching madly.

Kakashi had seen Sakura naked before. It was only natural considering he was bound to her, but he'd never before seen a naked human male. In his human form, he was never undressed, so he didn't even know what a human manhood looked like, and Sakura had never been with a man before. So the sight of a naked Yamato made Kakashi stumble slightly as he padded toward Sakura, veering sharply away to give the knight room to pull on his pants.

Kakashi sniffed at her mouth. She was tired still, as was he, but she wasn't sick, and she pushed his nose away roughly as she stood up and wrapped her arms around Yamato's neck.

"Why don't we escort you to the castle?" she murmured in his ear before moving to kiss him on the lips. "Unless you're afraid of Kakashi?"

Yamato laughed. "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?" he asked. "I'd love to have you as an escort, my lady."

_Escort?_ Kakashi thought wildly. _I have to be in his presence too? And unless Sakura takes some herb to abort it, she will have his child! Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!_

"Come on, Kakashi!" Sakura called. While Kakashi was in his stupor, she'd packed up the blanket and all her belongings and was already beginning to head out with Yamato at her side. Kakashi bounded after her, wincing with each landing. She was feeling it too, he could tell, but he himself would not be allowed to show it like she was.

So he walked stiffly, pretending to be angry and upset when really he was just sore.

Six hours later, while Yamato and Sakura were sitting down for lunch, he felt it again. The itch. There wasn't a hill in sight.


	4. His Bitter Fight Becomes His Fancy

A/N: Sorry about my absence. You wouldn't believe how hard I worked on this chapter, and I still think it reeks. I rewrote the ending like, five different times before finally settling on the whole blood thing. O.o Well, I hope it was worth the wait. As soon as I get past my little thrill in TRH, I'll put that up too. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I do, however, own this story.

**Shifting Life  
****His Bitter Fight Becomes His Fancy**

Kakashi knew it would start soon. The pains. The insanity of it. He might go after Yamato again, turn on himself in some twisted attempt to stop the pain, or even go for Sakura if he felt she might be the source of it. For a moment he thought about letting that happen. Then the winds changed, and with the winds, he saw an opportunity for escape from that scenario.

They were downwind of another wolf. Kakashi glanced nonchalantly toward the source of the scent. It was a spicy, confident odor: the smell of one who's just pissed his mark, one who knows his will. Hiding in the grass was a dark-furred creature, Kakashi saw after he located the thing, his eyes gleaming red. He was staring directly at Sakura, and in a sudden flash, he leaped out of his hiding place and rocketed towards her.

"Look out!" Kakashi snarled, alarmed for his own life if not for hers, and dove in front of her in time to slam the newcomer out of the way with his shoulder.

"_Fight me, stranger,"_ Kakashi said, standing several meters away from Sakura and Yamato, rigid and stiff, with his hackles raised and his fangs bared. _"Don't bother with those insignificant humans. Come after me. Come after my blood. I have energy I need to expend. Or are you afraid?"_ In truth, the last thing Kakashi wanted was a fight—the soreness from last night still hadn't left his abdomen and was giving him some trouble walking still.

The stranger wolf's surprised and angry face relaxed, and he smiled in a very fox-like way, his fangs flashing bright in the stillness. _"Afraid? Of a wolf-dog pet? I think not. I will come for you, wolf-dog. Prepare yourself!"_ With a snarl, the stranger wolf leaped forward and sank his fangs into Kakashi's right shoulder. His speed was blinding—he was but a blur as he moved.

Kakashi let out a snarl of his own (though his was one of pain) and reared, hugging the stranger wolf with his forelegs and pulling on his scruff in an attempt to get him to release his shoulder. He shook his head from side to side, tearing at the stranger's scruff. Fur tore loose; dark blood scattered into the air and hit the ground like fat droplets of rain. The two wolves ripped and tore at each other like this, forelegs off the ground like wrestlers, thrashing about like bears. _This is not how a wolf fights,_ Kakashi thought with narrowed eyes as he pulled back, then thrust forward with alarming speed. The stranger wolf yelped, his jaw strained where Kakashi had hit it, and backed away, shaking his head free of Kakashi's blood. There was a sickening crack—the jaw was set back in place.

"_This isn't how a wolf fights!"_ Kakashi snarled, standing with his tail raised.

The other wolf stopped and sank into a pose that Kakashi thought only a human could portray: there was a slouch in his shoulders, a wide, lazy grin plastered on his face, eyes nonchalantly hooded.

"_You're absolutely right, my friend,"_ the black wolf said. Kakashi stiffened. _"Let us then fight as our forefathers did. As shape shifters!"_

To the outside man, what happened next was but a blur of black and silver. The two shape shifters moved so quickly that they appeared almost as smoke. The ferocity of their attacks was like fire splintering wood.

Kakashi was the first to relent, bounding through the grass as a wolf to catch his breath and take stock of his injuries. His abdomen was still sore and was stinging now, his ear was torn, his red eye was bleeding from a scratch across the lid, but other than that, he was merely tired. The black wolf showed signs of fatigue as well, though he had more wounds than Kakashi did, all along his neck and back. Then he charged forward and took hold of Kakashi's muzzle in his jaws. The searing heat coming up from his mouth and nose caused Kakashi's eyes to water.

Straining his neck, Kakashi flipped his adversary over onto his back. The impact caused the black wolf to release his muzzle, and Kakashi raised his head up, his fangs flashing as he made for the other's neck. But the other had shifted slightly, allowed his body to become smaller, and he drove his own jaws upward and sank his own fangs into Kakashi's throat.

Kakashi choked and spat blood into the eyes of his adversary, who yelped and released him. Kakashi stood as a human, gasping for breath as he felt blood pour down his front, without a mask, choking and coughing from the intense pain of fangs just imbedded in a neck only protected by a thick scruff.

He stared unwittingly at Yamato, who looked like he had just been stabbed, then at Sakura, who also looked shocked. Then strong arms grabbed him in a choke hold and pressed against his trachea, blocking off air and causing him to choke and spit up blood once more. He let out a strangled shout that chilled the air to silence until the other began panting in his ear.

"Well," he said. "This was fun, but I have a feeling your woman's knight wants to kill us both, and I have a strong desire to suck the sweet blood straight from your neck or lap it from your jaw. I am very hungry, you know."

"Bastard!" Kakashi snarled, breaking off as blood trickled from his mouth with a cough. He felt smoke trickle over his body and enter his mouth, manifesting itself into a solid tongue. He choked as the long thing slid down his throat and sucked greedily at the blood sliding down, staring wildly into the gleaming red eyes of someone he knew.

Obito.

Kakashi nearly vomited. Obito had hold of his necklace and was pressing his thumb against it so that Kakashi couldn't move. Torture. This was torture: a tongue as long as an arm down his throat, licking at his inner wounds while simultaneously healing them; his soul being scratched at by a Shade's long finger; a knight behind him readying an arrow.

Then the tongue turned to smoke and exited Kakashi's throat, allowing him to breathe again. He nearly collapsed onto his knees, but Obito held him up and focused on his outer wounds now, lapping up the blood from Kakashi's neck and front with that abnormally long tongue of his and placing his entire mouth over the throat he had opened, making it sting as he nibbled greedily on torn flesh.

Kakashi was dizzy. Obito was drinking him dry, like a vampire to a human virgin. "Just," he rasped, "just shoot him, Yamato. Just shoot him. Please. Dear god, just shoot him."

"He can't hear you, Kakashi-san," Obito said wickedly, "not from here. And even if he decides to shoot, I'll"—he stopped mid-sentence. Kakashi felt it, too. The arrow was lightly touching his own stomach. Obito sank to the ground.

Dizzy still, Kakashi watched as Yamato drew another arrow taught so that the fletching rested against his cheek. He saw Sakura pull his arm away, but then they faded, and he collapsed.

_I'll what? Turn into smoke and vanish? _That_ is why they call them Shades. God, my neck hurts._ Those were his last thoughts before his soul dove into blackness.

---

With the cloth over his eyes it was like he was suspended in some alternate reality, where he saw nothing, understood nothing, and gathered nothing into his mind. He could feel Sakura stitching his wounds, and they hurt—he was aware of the needle pricking his skin, of the thread drawing through, of the skin closing shut, of the stinging alcohol cloth pressing against each wound to clean it. But the cloth kept him calm. It was an old trick Sakura had used since she threw the towel over his head during bath time and she learned what it could do.

In this state, he couldn't even dream. He didn't know why this happened. Maybe it was some animalistic instinct that shape shifters possessed for some reason.

His mask was on. He felt it against his skin. Thank god.

"I see you as a human but you're no better than an animal," Yamato's voice said suddenly, breaking through the meditative stillness. "Only an animal would be calmed by something like that. A human would become agitated."

How would Kakashi know what a human would feel under such a soporific cloth?

"Leave him alone, Tenzou. He saved both of us, you know, like it or not."

"I can't leave him alone, Sakura. I have _orders_."

"You can't kill him if he saved you from an actual Shade!" Sakura protested. "He's obviously not one—they wouldn't have been fighting! Doesn't the king only tell you to kill _Shades_?"

There was a pause, then, "No, but you're lucky I'm infatuated with you."

Sakura let out a sigh of relief.

"But I get to question him as much as I want," Yamato continued.

"Yes, yes," Sakura said. "Just don't kill him. You can do anything to get your answers as long as he doesn't die. I like having a protector, yeah?"

"You'll have your protector," Yamato said. Kakashi heard him crouch down, probably over his face considering the white covering his eyes darkened considerably. "He's a good fighter, and he was hurt even then." He flicked Kakashi's nose experimentally. There was no response. "Are shape shifters born to fight like that?"

"I don't know. I'd never even seen his face before yesterday," Sakura said sadly. "All I know is that he hates just about everything. He thinks the world is out for him or something."

"You'd be surprised how true that is when it comes to the king and his laws," Yamato said. "There used to be shape shifters all over the country, and they were friends with our previous king, but then the new king arrived as heir and passed a law that says they're all to be poisoned with Shadebane and burned. If you kill them in any other way, you have to kill another one. It's almost like he enjoys seeing them suffer."

"Do you?" Sakura asked.

Yamato said nothing. Kakashi could feel hatred boiling deep down again, even in his sluggish state.

"Well, step back," Sakura warned. "I'm about to take the cloth off and he'll snap at you if you're standing over him like that."

Yamato shuffled back a few feet and Sakura pulled away the white cloth covering Kakashi's eyes. As soon as it was gone, the shape shifter blinked. The room was dim and worn down, smelling of old wood and tools. He recognized it as the old traveler's shack he'd been in with Sakura once before. He raised his left hand to touch the bandage covering his eye—his right arm pointedly refused to move and protested when he tried—and on some base instinct he knew he would have a scar there. His shoulder felt massacred and broken, as did his throat (which throbbed even now). His other wounds were less serious, but they hurt all the same.

He sat up, his right shoulder, he noticed, tightly wrapped so that it was difficult to move even if there was no pain.

"Drink this," Sakura said from next to him, and she held out a tin cup. Kakashi eyed it warily, and breathed in its scent.

Immediately a wild hunger overtook him. He needed whatever was in the cup, and he knew on some hollow level _exactly_ what it was.

Blood. Shade's blood. Kakashi knew where she'd acquired it—from the slaughtered Obito, the Shade he'd fought against. It was the one thing all shape shifters lived to drink at least once in their life. One was not to die until they'd had a taste of their enemy, until they'd partaken in the battle the humans were interfering with. To a shape shifter, the blood held healing properties. To a Shade, it was the Shifter's blood that healed.

Kakashi snatched the cup from her almost greedily and tore down his mask—revealing a face covered in bite marks—before raising the cup to his lips as quickly as he could without losing a single drop. He gulped it down, relishing in the bitter taste, the black fluid scorching his wounded throat and spreading throughout his body. His shoulder burned and then lost its pain. His eye felt branded. His face and ear stung. The inner wounds Obito had given him closed, and soon the cup was empty.

"Where is the body?" Kakashi asked, glancing at Sakura with a starving eye. She'd seen him act like this only once before: they'd found a dead Shade on the road, and he'd devoured it, ravenous, with the crows.

Sakura shook her head. "Tenzou burned it during the night while you slept," she said. "I have a few more cups-worth."

From a little bladder sack he'd made a little while ago, Sakura poured more of the black blood into the cup and handed it back to Kakashi.

"Drink it all," she ordered.

"You'll have no problem there," Kakashi murmured, and gulped the second cup down more quickly than the first. It leaked around the edges of the cup, trickling down his chin, dripping onto the blanket pooled around his hips. His senses heightened. He was aware of Yamato taking a tentative step backward. The birdsong outside intensified. His own breathing as he drank seemed louder, harsher.

He drank it all. He drank until the sack was empty: five cups worth of bitter, black Shade's blood, disgusting to all but him.

When he'd finished, Kakashi nibbled on the cup rim and elongated his tongue to lick out the precious, life-giving drops from the inside. He used the top of his wrist to clean his chin, then licked the blood away. Afterwards he pulled up his mask and loosened the bandages around his shoulder.

"Bitter," he whispered, still high on the instinct to drink and drink.

"What the hell was that?" Yamato said aghast from where he stood off to one side. He looked pale, like he had just witnessed cannibalism.

"You think we are the same?" Kakashi growled to him. "You think we desire the same things? Our two peoples have always been at war, hating each other, drinking each other's blood in a cold ritual you have just seen. If you knights truly wished to rid the world of those Shades, then you would side with us Shifters. We are both shape-changers, yes, but their blood is black and ours is red."

Kakashi stood. "He stole away my eye, made it red like his. It's only fitting that I drink his black, black blood to match."

He pushed past Yamato, grinning broadly with his pupils dilated and his mind buzzing from the thrill of drinking from a fallen enemy, and stepped out into the morning mist.


	5. Her Thoughts Traverse Five Lonely Years

A/N: A short chapter, but in my opinion, a good one. Here we get a little more into the relationship aspect. Poor Sakura. 

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

**Shifting Life  
Her Thoughts Traverse Five Lonely Years**

She was fifteen—he was twenty-nine. He had been at her side for fifteen years, never leaving it, always within sight. In some ways she hated him for it. In some ways she loved him, but because he obviously hated her, she never showed her love. He would scoff and think it was some trick to get him close for a beating. It hurt her when he did that, and it hurt her that he never showed his human face.

She imagined it to be beautiful, she always did. Not flawless, but pepper-marked with little freckles or scars, each one begging to be kissed. It was a wonder he didn't sense her infatuation, didn't sense her dreams in which he was the center and he was making love to her, love like she'd read in stories. She could never actually have it, she knew. It would hurt him, just as his pleasurable sins would hurt her on some level that wasn't physical, like it was with him.

He often went on about his hatred for her and her family, and she'd smile and take it, and when it got to a certain point she'd kick him soundly in the ribs to put him in his place. And she'd snap at him and tell him to be grateful, and he would shoot back with the same words.

_Be grateful_.

He was out hunting now, a beautiful silver bobcat stalking the quail that hid in the shrubs, and he was getting close to the edge of the hundred-foot circle that surrounded her. He disappeared behind some bushes and she sighed, turning back to twiddling her thumbs.

"A human girl in love with a shape shifter? How utterly... sickening."

She looked up, shocked, and found herself staring into a pair of gleaming red eyes belonging to a pale-faced, dark-haired man. Before she could scream, his hand covered her mouth and he leaned forward to whisper in her ear:

"He's blood-drunk, fair lady. Even if you are connected, he cannot feel the sting. So to lure him, I will take you, as you want him to take you."

Her scream was muffled against his hand, then against his mouth as he kissed her and pushed her against the rock she had been leaning against. His lips were beckoning, tasting like fresh smoke from a birch fire, and soon he had her coaxed into relaxation. His tongue delved into her mouth and she felt a stirring in her belly that was actually somewhat pleasurable, and she moaned, soon drunk off of him as Kakashi was drunk off of hunting-high.

His long fingers took the headband she was wearing and untied it, letting it drop to the ground. His mouth left hers but moved to her jaw and throat. He was masterful, and as he whispered something in her ear, she quivered.

"I can feel it—you're a virgin."

He sucked at her pulse and she cried out a little as he began to move down, lower to her collarbone, then lower still... He was slicing open her shirt with a claw and she wondered where it had come from...

And then he was gone, and Kakashi was standing in front of her, guarding her. She sagged against the rock, completely drained.

"Caught off-guard by a shape shifter pet," the dark-haired man said, wiping his chin free of dark blood from where Kakashi had hit him. Kakashi tensed in front of her. From what, she didn't know. "I was just about to make love to your sweet little virgin."

"Get out of here," Kakashi said, his voice low in warning, but trembling. "You're not wanted!"

"No, I won't go," the dark-haired man said. He looked Kakashi up and down. "Shifter, you're trembling. Is it in fear? Have you never fought a Shade?"

"I've eaten one," Kakashi growled. "I'm a bit hungry for more. That's why I'm trembling, Shade." And then they were on each other, biting and snapping and snarling.

First they were wolves, using their powerful jaws to break bones. There was a huge snap and one of them yelped. Then they were cougars, using their claws to draw forth blood, and the Shade was on Kakashi's back with his claws deep in his shoulders. Then they were stags, trying to get past each other's defenses, and Kakashi's foreleg gave out and he dove forward as a human to avoid injury. The dark-haired man took the advantage, grabbed Kakashi by the back of shirt, and sat upon him, pulling his wounded arm behind his back.

So it had been Kakashi who yelped. It had been his bone that snapped.

Kakashi cried out in pain, and he began to attempt to shift, but there was another loud crack, and he lay still.

"Try any of that, Shifter, and your breastbone will break," the dark-haired Shade warned. "Judging from the sound of it and the way you're squirming, something already has. And my name is Obito, by the way."

"What are you going to do?" Kakashi growled lowly.

"I am going to keep you here until you start to become a chimera," Obito replied smartly. "And once I've left a permanent mark on you, I'll leave."

Six hours trickled slowly by, with Sakura in her daze the entire time, and Kakashi occasionally trying to wriggle his way free. She heard several snaps, and finally he lay quietly, his wrist and arm bent at an odd angle, Obito sitting square on his back.

And then came the convulsions. Kakashi thrashed, regardless of his broken arm, and after a few minutes of failed escape attempts, he screamed, and Obito let him go. But it was an odd scream, one that combined nearly every animal Sakura had seen him as. She heard a high-pitched wolf's howl, an owl's keen hoot, a rabbit's dying squeal along with a cat's hiss and a stag's bugle. With his good hand Kakashi clutched at his eye, tossing his head and stumbling, and even as he began shifting violently, Obito turned into a crow and flew off.

Kakashi's convulsions and shiftings subsided after a few minutes, but he came to her with one eye shut, and for a few moments, Sakura's heart beat fast. She had a sudden desperate longing for him to finish what Obito had started, for him to pull down that stupid mask of his and kiss her, to say something sweet to her for once.

"Lie down," he said, and she heard the bitterness in his voice. She did as she was told, though, slowly, her back sliding against the rock until she lay flat upon the ground.

He shuffled through her pack with his good hand and brought out a small vial of balsam essence. Pulling the cork from the top, he held it under her nose and raised her head so the sweet scent wafted into her nostrils. She coughed and rolled over to get away from the power of it, and he pulled it away, seemingly satisfied.

"Stupid of me," he said lowly, sitting back on his haunches and rubbing his eye. "Tonight I will teach you how to use Shadebane." Then, disturbingly, he grabbed hold of his arm and snapped the bones back into place.

"You need elm for that," Sakura said, at last coming out of her daze and taking Kakashi's hand in her own. His hand twitched as she looked it over, the wrist and arm swollen and bleeding from wolf teeth. Despite his discomfort at their proximity, however, he allowed her to bathe his arm in elm oil and rub a poultice onto it, and even drank the decoction she offered him. She had him chew coca leaves for the pain, and then they returned to her grandmother's lands, tired and weary.

She had more supplies there and treated his wound carefully, putting all her love into her work. But she knew it was for nothing. This man—this beast—would always hate her.

---

She was sixteen—he was thirty. In the year since the incident, the tender treatment she had given him seemed forgotten, and the rib-kicking and skin-twisting had returned in full force. She threatened him with Shadebane sometimes—he'd taught her how to use it and when, and even showed her how to make an antitoxin from it being mixed with poisonous cherry laurel. He told her that the two poisons destroyed each other and created a pleasing, healing wine. However, he warned her, it was still poisonous if taken recklessly.

She threatened to kill him for his stupid insubordination too many times to count, and finally he grew tired of it.

"Fight with me and I will show you how difficult I am to kill," he ordered, and eager to try her hand, Sakura raised her fists to fight.

He knocked her over and held her down shortly after they began, and for a few pounding heartbeats, Sakura thought he might kiss her. But it must have been imagined, for he looked at her in disgust and then became a cougar to wash his paws.

---

She was seventeen—he was thirty-one. He'd been bitten by a snake that carried Shadebane in its fangs, and now he was deathly ill. She helped him to a traveler's shack and he (only because he was delirious) allowed her to suck some of the poison from his wound, giving her time to make the cherry laurel wine. He drank it silently and then slept for three days, forced to curl around her throat as an ermine because the flood season was coming fast and soon the traveler's shack would be unfit to live in for those months.

While he slept around her neck she rubbed the fur along his head with one finger, pulling it away several minutes before he woke and leaped off of her, stretching his human limbs until they popped. Then he proceeded to berate her for even going near a city—for this was the first one they had encountered in some years—especially when the cities were where the knights usually crowded.

---

She was eighteen---he was thirty-two. This was the year where they'd almost been caught by knights, and for the next two years, would not go near civilization.

And still, even in their solitude, he hated her.

---

Yamato raced after Kakashi to the outside of the hut, leaving Sakura alone with her thoughts inside. She'd fallen silent after the Shifter had gone, her mouth set into a firm thin line. He knew she wouldn't speak, so he followed the shape shifter out the door.

"Here to ask more questions?" Kakashi growled, not looking at him. His arms were crossed, his face turned away toward the pile of ash that was Obito. He was either ashamed, disgraced, or too proud to look at a human knight properly, or maybe he was just wishing Obito's body was rotting in his stomach instead of being blown away by the wind.

"That Shade, he was holding your necklace and you didn't move."

Kakashi looked at him out of his red eye, his chimera's eye. What beast had red eyes that would set in such a way, Yamato didn't know, but the scar over Kakashi's eye (he'd taken off his bandages with startling speed after downing the blood) was frighteningly human.

In response to Yamato's words, Kakashi snatched him by his shirt front and pulled him so that his bitter-smelling breath was hot on his face. There was anger in those mismatched eyes, anger so intense it was almost tangible.

"Where is your soul?" the shape shifter asked quietly. He dropped Yamato the few inches he'd lifted him up off the ground, and the knight was shocked by his sheer strength. It had seemed as though Kakashi was exerting no more energy than if he was lifting up a traveler's sack. "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf" suddenly seemed like a very real question.

"Is that an insult?" Yamato asked. "Are you telling me I don't have one?"

"I'm asking you where it is," Kakashi snapped, his vocal chords shivering with a wolf's snarl. "Even the king has a soul, I bet, but it's blacker than Obito's blood. I'm asking you where a human keeps their soul."

"We keep it inside," Yamato said, puzzled. "In our hearts."

And then Kakashi seemed to go a little crazy. He leaped upon Yamato as a wolf with long sabers for canines and knocked him down, baring them in his face. "Don't toy with me, you filthy, corrupted little human!" the wolf snarled. "You, who made love to my master, you who have put your seed in her! How dare you contaminate my charge with your essence! How dare you say that I am bound to her _soul_! I have no human emotions! This face does not represent the human soul! I am bound to her body, nothing more, and if you insinuate that a human heart holds a soul, then I will eat yours here and now and destroy the child you have given her!"

"I answered your damned question!" Yamato snapped, but Kakashi cut him off.

"She won't listen to _me_," he said. "If I tell her to get rid of that baby, she'll have it to spite me. But _you_, you can tell her to abort it and because you _love her_, she will listen to you! But _I_, I would kill her if the chain allowed me to! I would sink these fangs into her throat and enjoy every minute of it, just to see her die! I will kill any baby that she has, you can trust that! Tell her to get rid of it or allow her to wallow in the knowledge that it will be killed. Tell her _now_."

And Kakashi stood as a human and backed away, and if Yamato imagined hard enough, he might see phantom hackles raised in a pantomime gesture of hate. The knight had not expected this explosion from the shape shifter. He found that he was terrified---Kakashi could have easily killed him then and there. Sweat glistened on Yamato's brow, and he wiped it away, trying to stare back at his adversary with equal intensity, but he couldn't. This shape shifter was in chronic pain and suffering. It had driven him almost insane; the energy contained just beneath the surface was begging to be released and, bottled up inside, it was destroying him.

Yamato suddenly felt an unwitting desire to help this weary creature.

"I'll tell her," he said quietly, "but I don't doubt she heard every word of what you just said to me."

"If you asked me, I would," Sakura said, coming out of the shack. She looked quiet and sad and somber. She held a root in her hand and raised it to her lips. She took a bite. Almost immediately, Kakashi relaxed. It seemed that he knew the root she was eating. She ate the entire thing, and then Kakashi turned away tiredly.

"If you want to have a child," he said, "I cannot be bound to you. Find a way to unbind me first, and then you can have all my blessings." But he said it contemptuously, then turned into a fox and curled tightly into a ball. It seemed as though the initial blood rush had faded, and now he was going to sleep.

Very well. Yamato knew exactly what to do.


	6. His Soul Offers no Solace

A/N: Sorry this took so long. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

**Shifting Life  
****His Soul Offers no Solace**

"You want to _what_?" Sakura asked, aghast. Kakashi was fast asleep in his fox form, curled into a tight ball beneath the shade of a stinted apple tree, and as she watched him, Sakura could not bear the idea of what Yamato was telling her.

"I want to capture him," Yamato said, "and take him to the king."

"But _why_?" Sakura asked, still shocked and puzzled, as well as deeply upset. This was Kakashi, and no matter how much he hated her, she loved him with all of her heart. To send him to the king--to send him to his death--seemed the most horrible gift someone in love could possibly give to the object of their affections.

"The king knows old magic, deep magic. It's the kind that runs through Kami's veins," Yamato said. "He of all people will be able to reverse what your grandmother's done."

"Then you sentence him to death!" Sakura shrieked, beginning to shake. The urge to slap the man next to her was great and tempting. "The king will not be as generous as Grandmother Tsunade, and she is not generous at all, to be sure!"

"Hear me out, love," Yamato continued, taking her hand and kissing it gently. "We will pretend that _you_ are bound to _him_, and that if the knights kill him, so then do you die."

She looked at him, quizzical and skeptical, and pulled her hand away to her chest. He followed it to her and kissed her on the lips, but she was unresponsive.

"The king will be more than happy to unbind the two of you; then, if we're lucky, we can escape."

Sakura stared disbelievingly at her lover for a moment, then leaped upon him in a fit of joy, hugging him fiercely and kissing his cheeks and lips again and again. "Tenzou, Tenzou, my dear heart!" she cried. "You are a good man!" Then she pulled away. "But Kakashi will never go along with it. He'll think it was a plot to just get him out of the way." She spat in his direction.

"Come here, to this tree. Will a spell wake him up?" Yamato asked, striding over to the opposite side of the tree where Kakashi lay sleeping.

"A spell?" Sakura asked, following him. She pulled her cloak more tightly around her shoulders. She had never seen a spell. She shivered. "You're a Witch?"

"Yes," Yamato said. He placed his hand and forehead against the rough bark, and sighed. "Will he wake up?"

Sakura shook her head.

"I'm going to call the knights here. We'll head towards them with Kakashi. Both of us, when we see them, will pretend to be hostages, all right? I'll take the opportunity to grab Kakashi from behind and blindfold him to relax him."

"It's a good plan," Sakura said, "but are you sure it will work?"

"No," Yamato said. "But hush. I have to concentrate."

And then Sakura witnessed something that fascinated her. It looked as though Yamato was courting the tree, stroking and kissing its bark, singing softly to it, asking for a favor with a tiny smile turning the corners of his mouth up. He paused, and then whispered to it, "I am under the guard of a Shade. My lover is under his binding spell. We make our way to Konoha from the west."

There was a sigh from high above in the boughs of the tree, and the leaves began to rustle, though there was no wind to move them. Three broke off of their branches and fluttered away to the east, carrying the simple message. One leaf for each statement: how incredible!

"All right," Yamato said, patting the tree trunk lightly. "Wake him up. We need to go. The knights will head our way as soon as the leaves come to them." He walked briskly to the side of the shack where his horse was tied and began to swiftly tack her.

Sakura reluctantly moved to where Kakashi lay sleeping and nudged him sharply with her booted foot after regaining her nerve. He jumped up, startled, and then grunted when he saw that it was only her.

"What do you want?" he asked, either unaware of Yamato's preparative actions or blatantly ignoring them. Frowning, Sakura guessed it was the latter.

"Let's go, Kakashi," she said. "Tenzou has to get back to the castle and we've wasted time waiting for you."

Kakashi stood as a human and snapped, "So why doesn't he just go himself?" standing over Sakura almost threateningly.

"Because I love her," Yamato said, striding toward Kakashi with his sword drawn. The Shifter took a few steps back as the blade slid flat-sided along his neck. He glared at it with distaste. "I don't see any problem with that, Shifter."

"I see no problem with loving her either, _human_," Kakashi said, and he practically spat the word. If he was without a mask, he no doubt would have. He shoved the sword aside and held it in a hand now protected by scales. He squeezed the metal until red blood made its way towards the hilt, then he released it. "It's _making _love to her that I'm warning you against."

Yamato flicked the sword, scattering the blood into the dust, then sheathed it and made for his horse again. Kakashi's eyes followed him for a moment before they suddenly darted to the side, and he gazed, unsure, out at a man in the distance. A crow's caw from the far-off figure relaxed him, and he howled back, cupping his hands to his human mouth and spilling his sweet song into the air. Sakura sighed, loving the sound.

The man came rushing forward upon hearing the invitation until he only stood across the road. He had neck-length brown hair, straight, and brown eyes, and he strode toward Kakashi warily, eyeing Sakura and zigzagging and shifting from foot to foot when he came to a standstill a few yards away from them.

"It seems you have a rapport with humans, brother chimera," the man said.

Kakashi stiffened. "Chimera? What are you talking about--I'm a Shifter, like you, sir."

"It's not an insult, if that's what you're wondering, brother," the Shifter said. He had a long toothpick in his mouth; he took it between his fingers and spat into the dirt. "The crows call me Shiranui Genma. Come and talk with me, brother, away from the prying ears of this girl."

"I am bound to the girl," Kakashi said, straightening and blocking Sakura slightly from view, "by old magic that runs deeper than the fires of the earth. I am Hatake Kakashi. But you say the crows named you? And you say I am a chimera? I don't care whether it's a compliment or not--I'm not one of those creatures."

Genma nodded sympathetically, but seemed to ignore Kakashi's later questions. "Yes--my mother was burned before she could name me; my father took me south and then died from a Shadebane arrow."

"Took you south?" Kakashi asked, interested, though Sakura could tell he was slightly annoyed at Genma's insolence. "Why are you back here in this country? Is the south a safer place for us?"

"Shifters, chimeras--yes," Genma said. "I called you one because of your eye." He gestured to his own. "That looks rather painful, brother. Shades have their own section of land. Humans who fear the knights of this country and others live there as well."

"And the king?" Kakashi asked. "But, sir, I am not a chimera. My eye has nothing to do with it."

Genma shrugged. "A just man, but a man nonetheless, a fugitive from this regime. And I shall take your word for your own blood, brother."

"Come on, girl, stop being so damn stubborn!"

Kakashi whirled around at the sound of Yamato trying to get his mount to cooperate. For a moment he thanked whatever god there was that the horse was so afraid of his wolf form, then he whirled back to Genma and grabbed him by the shoulders. They were almost the same height, with Kakashi only the slightest bit taller, but nonetheless, the movement made the other skittish. He pushed back against Kakashi's chest, separating himself from the other, and fingered his crow-shaped necklace nervously.

"You must go!" Kakashi hissed frantically. "A knight of this regime guards me." Sakura saw Genma stiffen considerably. "Fly as a crow back to the southlands, to our people--under no circumstances must you stop--and get yourself to safety."

Genma nodded and pulled away, flying high into the air as an unassuming crow, with only his necklace as a symbol of his heritage, dangling slightly as he flew.

Kakashi watched him go, then turned back to Sakura as though nothing had happened, though she saw the fearful look in his eye. She would tell Yamato nothing, but she longed to cup her protector's face, to pull down his mask and kiss him just once, lightly--but in that sense, she could not, because Yamato must not know of her undying love for this creature, and he had finally managed to pull his horse into the open.

"Sakura," he called, "would you like to ride, or would Kakashi like to keep you close to his person?"

In response, Kakashi glowered and became a proud-looking dapple-gray horse, quite a few hands larger than Yamato's bay mare, with a long mane hanging past his neck and a tail that he had to lift almost constantly to keep from dragging. He was fully tacked as well, and used this to hide his necklace, and he offered his shoulder to Sakura grudgingly.

But for a moment, Sakura could only stare in shock. Kakashi had _never_ become a horse for her, not ever. Clearly he was on edge around Yamato, and so not to seem suspicious, she pulled herself up onto his back, unused to stretching her legs so far apart. She shifted uncomfortably, and Kakashi narrowed his back slightly.

She took the reins as Kakashi began trotting in step besides Yamato and his horse. The Shifter kept snapping at the mare whenever she got too flirtatious.

"_I'm not interested," _he said to her sharply when she nibbled at his mane, and let out a coughing neigh to make his statement clear.

They traveled together for nearly a month and a half, stopping at small villages and towns where Kakashi had to pose as different creatures, all of them belonging to Sakura. Sometimes, for some extra money, they all hired themselves out for some menial labor. Kakashi, at one point, was nearly gored by the oxen he was herding, and took his rage out on the lamb leg Yamato tossed to him that night, tearing it apart and flinging it side to side in his anger.

"Calm down, Kakashi," Yamato said to the wolf as he brought a rice ball to his lips. "The lamb is dead. Besides, you'll hurt your neck."

"I'm pretending it's that stupid ox!" Kakashi snapped, tearing away some of the bone fibers and spitting them out before going back in for the marrow. "That damned thing nearly killed me!" He whipped his head from side to side, not even bothering to really chew his food as he swallowed, before finally tossing it away and laying down, licking his muzzle free of blood and stray pieces of meat. He sighed and gazed into the flames. On some inner level, Sakura knew that he wasn't angry at the ox.

But Kakashi's initial powerful feelings toward Yamato had toned down by now, and though they were far from being friends, they tolerated each other. Yamato no longer kissed Sakura any lower than her face, as once Kakashi, as a human, shoved him up against a tree and punched him sharply between the ribs, muttering something about humans and their stupid sense of love. It once led the knight to ask, "Then what the hell do Shifters view as love?"

Kakashi looked at him strangely. "I wouldn't know" he said simply. "I have never been in love." And then he looked back into the flames and said no more that night.

They woke one morning bright and early, Kakashi stretching his spine until it popped and rubbing his neck as a human, grunting something about it being sore and that maybe he should have taken Yamato's advice and calmed down. Sakura was slightly surprised that he would even admit to that, but he was obviously in some sort of pain--as she mounted him that day when he became a horse, he seemed drawn into himself and asked her ahead of time to shoo away any flies that came too close so that he would not have to move his head or neck.

It was just as the sun was beginning to set that the knights came.

They were first alerted by shouts in the distance, and Yamato dismounted, helping Sakura down from her seat on Kakashi. Kakashi became a human and hid his eye with an eye patch and his necklace with his cloak, and Yamato swatted his horse away. She galloped off back they way they had come.

Kakashi looked at Yamato questioningly, because now the knight had lost his mount, but then he stiffened as a group of three knights came trotting forward.

Yamato leaped toward Kakashi as soon as the knights began to slow. The Shifter was too afraid to react properly, and Yamato twisted his arm behind his back and choked him slightly with a tight arm around his throat.

"So here's the Shade," one of the knights said, a woman with long dark hair and vivid red eyes. She knocked an arrow to her bowstring and drew it back to her cheek.

"What?" Kakashi snarled. "I'm a what, Yamato?" His mask disappeared suddenly and he bit Yamato's arm with the fangs of a wolf, taking satisfaction from the man's pained shout. The blindfold he had been holding fluttered to the ground. Yamato released Kakashi's arm and the Shifter elbowed him roughly in the stomach, sending him sprawling. He turned his attention to the five knights that had now surrounded him, cutting him off from Sakura.

"Don't loose your arrows just yet, men," another knight said, a tan-skinned man with a small cylindrical pipe in his mouth. "The girl's bound to him, remember?"

"We don't have to kill him," another dark-haired knight said.

"But it will hurt the girl," the woman knight said.

The man with the small pipe leaped down from his gray horse and strode toward Kakashi, holding a serrated knife to his throat. Kakashi glanced at it and growled.

"Oho," the man said, laughing slightly. "The Shade is looking for a fight. I wouldn't fight though, Shade. This blade is covered in Shadebane--freshly dipped, too."

Kakashi could smell the acidic stench of the poison on the knife and shied away from it. The dark-haired man from behind wrapped a loose rope around his neck and tightened it until he had trouble breathing, then tied the end of the rope to his horse and bound Kakashi's hands together behind his back. In six hours, it would start, he knew.

The betrayal still had him frozen, and only when he realized that Sakura and Yamato had mounted horses when the two male knights had gotten down from them, and the one Kakashi was tied to started walking, did he know that it was time to move.

They rode, stopping briefly every hour or so, and when Kakashi began to feel the itch, he immediately turned to Sakura as though she might help him.

"Sakura, I…" A punch across his face had him lying on the ground, curled up with his stinging cheek pressed to the cool earth. The rope around his neck tightened dangerously as the horse continued walking, and the knight called for an all-around halt. Kakashi's vision blurred. The rope around his neck was loosened by some strong hands.

"You'll not talk to her, Shade," the man with the pipe said, kicking Kakashi in the ribs. He coughed feebly. Sakura covered her mouth with her hands, trying to hide her tears.

"Kakashi," Kakashi murmured.

The knight raised an eyebrow. "What was that?" he asked.

"My name's Kakashi," the shape shifter said. "I have a name…" Another kick to the ribs silenced him. These were much more painful than Sakura's kicks, whether because he was tired or whether because she had always been holding back, he didn't know. All he knew was that he tasted blood in his mouth, trickling down his chin.

"And my name's Asuma," the man above him said, digging his heel into Kakashi's side. "What were you going to say to the girl?"

"I need to change," Kakashi whispered.

"He says he needs to change, Captain Yamato," Asuma said, turning to look at his comrade.

Yamato swung down from his horse. "I think you've hurt him enough, Asuma," he said. "He won't run." He came forward, but a growl from Kakashi stopped him in his tracks. It was a weak growl, but one from deep within his chest. His visible red eye glinted angrily in the moonlight.

"Don't touch me," he said. But it seemed that he couldn't move, so Yamato took a knife and released his bound arms. Instantly, there were fangs in his flesh, crushing down on the bones in his arm, and wild eyes gazing at him with such hatred that if Yamato didn't die from a bite, he would surely die from those eyes.

Asuma stabbed his sword downward into Kakashi's side without a second thought. The wolf let out a yelp and lay still, back to a human, holding a hand to his wound as the knight drew his sword back out, slowly, wriggling it side to side with Kakashi's flesh. Kakashi groaned.

"Damn you knights," he said. "Damn all of you to hell!" But the words took too much effort, and he slipped into darkness.

* * *

He awoke sometime later with a cloth over his eyes, but struggled upright anyway. The cloth slipped from his face and a rough hand pushed him back down. He twisted. A needle slipped. A curse was spoken from Sakura's lips. His eyes snapped open to look at her, the woman knight crouched beside her. Kakashi found himself bare-chested and without a mask, his skin stained with his own blood. The rising sun told him that he'd been asleep for quite some time.

"You shouldn't do that again, Asuma," the woman knight said.

"What's it to you, Kurenai?"

"Lady Sakura looks weak, and she's our only healer."

Kakashi suddenly felt very, very afraid. No normal fear could hold him in such a transfixed state of terror, like a hare right before it dies freezes as it gazes at a pair of oncoming jaws. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to curl around Sakura's neck and fall asleep there, snuggled into her warmth, but then he pushed himself away from those putrid thoughts.

"You're awake," Yamato said. Kakashi looked up at the man standing over him. "I'd brain you for what you did." He brandished a bandaged arm angrily.

Kakashi merely laughed, his teeth still slightly pointed in threat. "I'd do it again in a second," he said, "if I could move." All told, he felt rather feverish. His muscles were clenched and refused to unwind. And then he realized something. His back arched and he opened his mouth in a silent little scream, unable to speak. Something hurt. Something hurt somewhere deep, and it wasn't a wound. Where was it? Where was his necklace!?

"Ah!"

Who the hell was _wearing_ his necklace? His jaw shivered and trembled, his eyes wide with pain, and then he closed them and sat up roughly, trying to stand, and he struggled against the hands that held him down.

"She's not done yet, Kakashi-san!" Kurenai said.

"Don't give him such respect, Kurenai," Asuma said. "He doesn't deserve it. Gai, isn't that his?"

"This necklace? Yeah. I'm seeing what he does. I'm pretty sure that reaction's not from Lady Sakura's healing." Gai jangled the necklace against his chest as he crouched in front of Kakashi's shaking form.

"Bastard!" the Shifter shouted, and reached for him, but Kurenai held him back. "That isn't yours!" He blanched as Gai held it between his fingers, twisting it in circles. It made Kakashi feel queasy.

"Are you sure you didn't steal it?" the knight asked with a smile.

"I've had that since I was born!" Kakashi snapped. "My mother carved it! Return it to me!"

"I don't think I will," Gai said. "Tell me more about it. I've always been curious about Shifter culture."

Kakashi went ahead unwittingly to speak of the necklace. He just wanted it back. He was trembling so badly Sakura had given up on her needle and now it was dangling from his side, unnoticed. That was his single most precious item in the world that Gai was holding, and if he lost it, he would go insane.

"A Shifter's father carves a necklace for his daughter, and a mother carves it for her son," he said, "just after they are born. They're carved in the form the baby comes as--I am a wolf, so my mother made my necklace a wolf's necklace before she died--and they become the child's soul. That necklace is my soul--my everything! I'm begging you, give it back!"

"Born as a wolf, huh?" Gai asked, staring at the necklace in his palm. It did look quite a lot like a grown wolf. Then Gai looked up sharply. "Shifter? I thought you were a Shade?"

"Does it matter?" Kakashi said earnestly. "Give it back!"

"Yes, it does, and if it keeps you in check, I'm keeping it for now," Gai said, standing. "Will we have to tie you up? I don't like seeing people that way."

Kakashi shook his head wildly.

"Good."

Kakashi tried to stand and stumbled. His legs were hardly able to support him, they were shaking so badly. He reached down with a claw and cut the needle away from his body and stared at Gai with a wide, disbelieving eye.

"No, please," he said. His voice was almost a whimper. "I need it back."

"It's your soul, you said?" Gai asked.

Kakashi nodded.

"How would you feel if someone tore your heart out?" Yamato asked suddenly, snatching the necklace from around Gai's neck and placing it back over Kakashi's. The Shifter quailed and sank to his knees, hunching his back and dry heaving. "You can't do that, Gai, even if he is a Shade."

"He said he was a Shifter," Gai said, eyes narrowed.

"Either way," Yamato snapped. "Call him what you like--you can't do that to somebody."

"What is he, Shifter or Shade?" Gai asked.

"It doesn't matter," Asuma said, pulling Kakashi up by the shoulder. "He's a shape-changer, and we've got to get the girl unbound from him, so we're taking him to the king to do that before we kill him."

"Don't touch him anymore," Yamato said. Asuma released Kakashi's arm, and the Shifter became a snake, curled shivering at his feet. "He'll stay close by. Sakura?"

Sakura looked up sharply, having been silent until this point.

"Are you all right?"

She nodded, and picked the snake up in her arms. He became a cat and immediately pressed himself close to her. He shook beneath her fingers, frightened, in pain, angry and violated, and she held him to her chest as unassumingly as she could. Nevertheless, Asuma and Gai looked at her with suspicion. She hated their cool, calculating eyes and what they had done to the creature in her arms. She hated _them_. She understood Kakashi a little better now, somewhat.

* * *

Sakura rode tiredly for the rest of the journey. Kakashi stuck close to her and stayed away from the knights (except for Yamato--it seemed the Shifter had a newfound respect for him), always in some protective form like a wolf or cougar. At one point he offered her his horse's back, but the Kurenai said that he would need to either give up his necklace or put the rope around his neck. Neither option was very appealing. Kakashi had never had his necklace stolen from him before this, and just the thought of not having it now terrified him. So he allowed Sakura some comfort instead by curling up in the saddle with her as a small cat, allowing her to stroke his fur every so often.

It actually felt rather nice, he reflected while she pet him once. The castle could just be seen on the horizon, and at the sight of it, Sakura's hand immediately fell to his side. His wound had healed by now, but it was still sore, and when she pet it and sent her healing energy through it, he couldn't help but softly purr.

And still, the knights looked on with suspicion. This was very odd for a hostage situation, though a spell upon the girl seemed quite likely. They'd seen Warlock Shades before, and had managed to kill all of them after destroying their spells. This Shade would be no different.

Upon reaching the gates some days later, Asuma grabbed Kakashi by the scruff and pulled him out of the saddle, holding him suspended in the air. His gaze flashed over the necklace around the Shifter's neck before he threw the cat to the ground in disgust.

"Get up, Shade, and start walking."

Kakashi pulled himself slowly to a stand as a human and walked near Sakura's horse, holding himself as tall as his wounded dignity would let him. His mask was back in place, and he stared only at the ground, saying nothing.

As they made their way into the city, citizens began to gather, and Asuma tightened a rope around Kakashi's neck to keep him from bolting or snapping at those who came too close.

"What are you doing to that poor man and his wife?" a woman in an apron asked, storming up to the band of knights.

Asuma merely laughed. "Man, fair lady? This thing is no man. He is a Shade." The knight grabbed Kakashi and whirled him around so that he could show the woman his necklace. She gasped, her hand to her mouth, and stumbled away.

"You're sick," Kakashi snarled, his vocal chords quivering with a wolf's snarl. "I mean no one any harm, and I am no Shade!"

"Tell that to the king," Gai said. "He won't listen."

"I'll make him listen!" Kakashi snapped. "Ask Yamato. He's seen a real Shade and knows the difference."

The knights turned to Yamato expectantly, who sat up straight in his saddle and said, "His race is worse than animals. Shades and Shifters are the same. That thing ate one of his own."

"Liar!" Kakashi screamed. Asuma held him back from leaping at Yamato. "You filthy liar! Tell them the truth, you little piece of shit!"

"That is the truth," Yamato said. "You drank its blood."

"You're the one who killed him!" Kakashi said wildly. A crowd was beginning to gather. "You're the one who _saved my life_! Tell them the damn truth!" His words were beginning to choke together into desperate sobs, and Asuma was pulling him back and back, tightening the rope until the Shifter could scarcely breathe. And then Kakashi let out a wretched howl in his human form, and it shocked everyone in the square to silence. The howl sounded distinctly like "Yamato!" before Asuma cut him off by punching him soundly in the stomach and hoisting him over his shoulder.

"That's enough, dammit," he said. "Let's go."

And now, with the Shifter fully unconscious, they made their way to the castle.


	7. He Knows not what He Feels

A/N: Warning (especially you, Mother-dear, who I pray to _god_ is reading this note before she reads the actual story): this chapter has some mature content in it. Why in god's name do you think I'd rate it this way otherwise? -points to blue M in upper left hand corner-

Yes, Mom. I'm a pervert, but you should know that by now, judging by my other stories. And just in case this wonderful little message hasn't hit home to you, I'm dedicating to you the chapter. Lovely, innit?

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, and I pray my mother doesn't kill me for what she's about to read. Even though it's not as bad as I'm making it sound, and it's not as bad as some other stuff I've written.

**Shifting Life  
****He Knows not what He Feels**

Kakashi woke slowly, curled up as a wolf on the cold ground, and looked about him. The first thing he was aware of was the fact that, as soon as he moved, his nose bumped into Sakura's knee. Startled, he reeled back from her as a human and leaned his back against the wall opposite her, noticing the fact that her hand dropped half-heartedly into her lap. A certain odd warmth was gone from the back of his neck. Had she been stroking him as he slept? It would explain his relative lethargy. If he allowed himself to admit to an indulgence, he would say she was rather good at petting.

He stared hard at her for a moment, searching her face with narrowed eyes, before taking in what was around them.

It was a cell. A cold, bleak, dank cell, with bars covering one wall in place of stone and torchlight leaking through to offer some visibility. His eyes cast back to her when they found nothing else of interest.

"You're cold," he said, seeing her shiver. Then, his eyes narrowed again, remembering what had happened to put them both here. "You betrayed me."

"Oh, dear heart, I didn't mean to!" she said pleadingly, clasping her hands together and nearly sobbing. This shocked him. Dear heart? Since when had she spoken to him with anything remotely like affection?

"What?" he asked, almost struck dumb by the suddenness.

"I had to!" Sakura said. "Tenzou said that we have to be unbound, and only the king can do it, and then we might be able to escape!" She shuffled towards him quickly, and he would have had a mind to flinch and back away had he not been so confused and angry. She cupped both his cheeks in her hands and kissed him on both cheeks, saying, "Take off that silly mask so I can kiss you, love! I was so worried that they would kill you!"

He shoved her angrily away after regaining his bearings. "You are not my charge," he said. "My charge would never say such things to _me_. I am a slice of meat to her. _You_ are most certainly not her."

"Then tell me if this hurts you!" she snapped, and bit her own wrist, hard. Blood welled and spilled over her skin, dripping to the floor.

Kakashi yelped and clamped a hand over his own wrist before staring at her in shock. The bluntness of her human teeth made the pain that much more intense. "Sakura?" he asked, bewildered.

She released her wrist and spat out the blood, then began crying silent tears. Unsure of what to do, Kakashi crept towards her as a wolf, slinking low. Before he could react, she'd grabbed him by the face and pulled him close to kiss the top of his head and rub her hands through his fur, staining him with her blood.

"What's _wrong_ with you?" he asked, pulling away.

"Don't you get it, you mangy scrap?" Sakura replied, staring at the Shifter who was once again human. "I love you. I've always loved you. But you've always hated me, so I could never show my love to you. And you may not understand it because of your wolf's brain, but I betrayed you because I love you, to help you. Do you understand?"

"No," Kakashi growled, warning her against nearing him again with one of his glares. He wasn't yet sure if this was worse than her kicks. The lack of pain was nice, but this was so odd, and the stirring in his stomach was not quite pleasant.

"Please take off your mask for me," Sakura begged. "Not because you are injured or need to breathe better, but to let me see! I want to see your beautiful face and kiss it until I have no more kisses left in me!"

But Kakashi still did nothing. "You're cold," he repeated slowly, each syllable drawn out slightly, "and now you're wounded."

"Then warm me and heal me," Sakura ordered, "or you will surely die of my cold and my hurts."

Kakashi deliberated for a moment, then snapped, "Do not take advantage of this," offering her an open cloak. She rushed forward and nestled herself as deeply as she could against his chest, her nose pressed into his collarbone as he wrapped his arms and heavy fur-lined cloak around her.

He could tell she was breathing in his scent. One of her hands was on his shoulder, the other wrapped around her own middle for extra support, and soon, he thought, she would be asleep. He began to lick away the blood on her wrist instinctively, knowing that his spit would help the wound to heal. Infection would come all too easily down here in this dungeon.

--

He didn't notice that he'd fallen asleep too, leaning stiffly against the wall, until he was woken by warm breath tickling his neck. He opened one eye blearily to see that Sakura's position within his forced embrace had changed. She was using his shoulder as a sort of pillow, her nose and mouth hardly inches away from the fabric covering his neck. He couldn't move her—he could tell she was literally sick with worry. The cold would do no good for her, so he allowed her to stay.

But he had to change his own position, which was becoming uncomfortable. So, careful not to wake her, he lay down with his back to the wall and wrapped his arms tightly about her so that no part of her touched the cold floor, and he allowed himself to fall asleep thus entwined.

--

Yamato didn't know which was worse: Kakashi getting locked up after being tortured for the better part of a month, or Sakura getting locked up with him. With Kakashi, Sakura was safe, there wasn't any doubt about that. The only reason that was true was because with Kakashi bound to her, the end of her life meant the end of his. It didn't stop Yamato from worrying over them both. However, if Sakura had been allowed to stay with the knight captain (which she unfortunately wasn't), she would have no doubt been horrified at her separation, having never been outside of her protector's line of sight in her entire life.

It made him sigh and rub his fingers through his hair as he sat at the council table, discussing what to do with the other knights and the king, King Sarutobi.

"I say we unbind them and run him through as soon as it's done," one of the knights said.

Yamato frowned.

"I say we unbind them and torture him first," another said.

Yamato's frown grew wider.

"What if we humiliated him?"

"Gave him just a drop of Shadebane?"

"Forced him to eat his own shit?"

That last was quite disturbing. Yamato cast a glance up at the one who had said that, sighing again when he saw it was only Anko. She _would_ think of something horrible like that...

"Yamato?" Sarutobi asked, seeming to have noticed Yamato's silence. "What do you think about this? You've known this Shade the longest, and frankly, all of these suggestions are rather crude." He looked pointedly at those who had been arguing.

Yamato thought a minute. He'd been cooking up this plan for a while. "Do we still have that girl Shade, the one that calls herself Rin, in the dungeons?"

Ibiki, the head dungeon guard, nodded.

"After we unbind Lady Sakura and Kakashi, we could take out both Shades at once." He was making a show of deliberation and concentration, and frankly, he thought it was rather good. "Have them fight after Kakashi recovers. And whoever wins, we can bait."

"Ooh, we can do it in the public square!" Anko hissed excitedly. She stood. "I second Yamato's idea."

Sarutobi folded his hands. "It is quite a good idea, and I haven't seen a show for a while. Very well, Captain. This promises to be highly entertaining..."

Yamato felt sick to his stomach. This was either going to work perfectly or end _horribly_, and he had a feeling Kakashi wouldn't be too compliant to do what he was ordered to do. Damn Shifter, with his bullheadedness that seemed out of place for someone who was born as a pack-oriented wolf. And what's worse, he probably thought Yamato and Sakura had betrayed him, and was no doubt sitting in the dungeons, fearing for his life and wondering whether someone would be coming around to take his necklace away from him again.

Yamato looked up at Gai, who in turn glanced at Asuma. Asuma nodded once.

"Horribly" suddenly seemed like an understatement.

--

When Kakashi woke again, it was because Sakura was muttering in her sleep.

His eyes narrowed when he heard his name on a soft sigh, and a pang of desire rushed through him that was not his own. Her fingers curled in his shirt as she slept, and then she too awoke, bright eyed and smiling.

"It's not a dream," she said. Then she frowned. "But your mask is still there. Why?" Her hand was on his face, her thumb rubbing gently along his cheekbone as if they had been lovers for the longest of times.

She reached forward suddenly and kissed him on the lips. Stiff against the wall, Kakashi did not respond—rather, he froze in place as his mask disappeared of its own accord. He had not ordered it away, like he normally would have. Or had he? He couldn't tell. Sakura's lips were on his again, and she seemed to want him to kiss her back.

But he couldn't. He'd never kissed before, had never even gotten remotely close. He'd mated once with a stray female wolf that had wandered into his territory before he'd been bound, but he'd been young then, and wolves did not kiss. They bit and held and _procreated_. This was clearly not that. Sakura wanted something more. So this was human love?

His human body seemed to be enjoying it somewhat, but his wolf's mind was still trying to work out the kinks of his own reason. With his brain thus unable to work properly, his body took over, and before he knew what he was doing, he was kissing her back, caught up in this human thing so new to him. She sighed and did something to him that struck fire throughout his insides, and his breath suddenly became shorter.

_Shift!_ his mind whispered urgently. _Shift!_

He rolled on top of her, no longer caring if she was cold—he would warm her up. Her hands roved his chest (when had it become bare?) as his hands roved her still-covered sides. He wanted her bare, too.

_Shift!_ his mind demanded. _Shift!_

He kissed her furiously, along her jaw and neck, and her arms were wrapped around him. She was smiling joyously. He used a gentle hand and began to push aside her tunic.

_Shift!_ his mind screamed. _Shift!_

And as if he'd been bitten into action, he did, and he leaped off of her as a stiff-legged cougar, staring at her with wide eyes. Had he just done... and then... he couldn't have... he'd always abhorred the mere thought!

She closed her tunic tightly with her arms crossed over her chest as if to shield her hurt, and then she looked away angrily.

The squeal of the cell bars as its door opened went partially unnoticed until a rope was looped around Kakashi's neck and he was tugged out forcefully enough to make him snarl and cough and cougar's hiss.

"Don't you snap at me, you filth," the guard said. He looked up at Sakura. "Come on, my lady." She stood and took the guard's hand when it was offered, and he noticed her bloody wrist. "Did this thing bite you?" he asked.

"Yes," Kakashi said, before she could respond. He stood as a human (now a dangerous proposition considering what had occurred only moments before) and growled a tiger's growl. He blocked the punch sent for his stomach with one hand, but couldn't disregard the lack of air when the guard pulled painfully on the rope. With a gasp, Kakashi lurched forward, having no choice but to follow where the man was now leading him.

Quickly, he memorized the passageways they filed through, Sakura hovering uncomfortably close to his shoulder, her fingers plucking at his cloak. The guard looked back once at her timid appearance and then grumbled, "Damn Warlock Shades."

Kakashi glowered. Why were they so keen to blame him? It was Tsunade's fault he was in this mess, not his own. Although, he mused, he would give anything to be able to bite the head off of this troublesome girl. Maybe being unbound wouldn't be so bad...

His mouth began to water dangerously. Thoughts of tearing Sakura apart began to cloud his vision like a steam, and he blissfully allowed the guard to lead him up and up, forgetting he was supposed to be memorizing the hall. And then the sweet visions changed into something much more sour, though it was something his human body thought was quite pleasant.

No. He definitely did not want _that_ blocking his concentration. He promptly turned into a wolf and snapped warningly at her pulling fingers. She stiffened and backed away, following about a foot behind him now as the guard led them on, a curious expression written on his face.

_Let him wonder,_ Kakashi thought. It wasn't as if it was his business what he did or didn't do to this filthy little bitch behind him.

_What he did or didn't do..._

He wrapped his tongue around his muzzle to help dry off his mouth.

--

Kakashi was thrown to the middle of the floor of a courtyard just outside the walls of Konoha Keep. The knights were all gathered around, and the Shifter noticed with a hint of blood lust that Yamato was also there, chewing his cheek.

_I hope he bites his tongue and bleeds to death,_ Kakashi thought angrily, shaking the rope from around his neck and tossing it to the side. Sakura stood beside him, but not as close as she was before, and the old king Kakashi had feared his entire life was standing at the fore of the ring of knights.

"King Sarutobi," Kakashi said, bowing mockingly after standing. Bitter sarcasm laced his voice. "It is an honor to finally meet the famous murderer. My father told me so much about you, I was so excited to meet you."

"Your father, eh?" Sarutobi asked. "What was he born as? A rat?"

Kakashi narrowed his eyes at the old man. "A cougar," he said stiffly. Shifters did not take well to insults, although they threw them quite nicely.

"And he's dead?"

"Oh yes, very much so," Kakashi bit out scathingly, "but not by your _gracious_ hand, Lord of the Ashes."

"And you miss him?"

"Like I would miss food when I'm hungry," Kakashi offered, somewhat hesitant now.

The old king smiled and spread his hands. "I am not one to deny a starving animal food," he said, "but I'm afraid I'm not here to kill you just yet."

"Oh?" Kakashi said, sounding sarcastically intrigued. "Then allow me to applaud you as best as a wolf can for being able to resist such a voracious temptation." He changed into a wolf and bowed again, though it could have been mistaken for a lazy stretch. One of the knights drew his sword partway, but a glance from Sarutobi had it sliding back into its sheath.

Kakashi became human once again, his arms crossed. "Do your worst, Fire King," he challenged.

--

When Kakashi saw his father die, he'd been so angry that he'd been seeing red. Of course, blood from his own chest had splashed across his vision as the gnarled vines that Tsunade had summoned coiled up around his face. Through his heart. Down his arms. Across his waist. But as angry as he'd been, in all of that anger there was not one _ounce_ of sorrow.

And afterwards, bound to Sakura, he wasn't about to show any emotions lest she try to take advantage of him.

Which she somehow managed to do anyways, _again and again_. And even though he was finally being freed from her now, he couldn't help but relive all the pain he'd felt over the past twenty years. All the hate, all the rage, all the tears that he was too outraged to show—they all came flooding to him in one tidal wave.

One minute, Kakashi was challenging the king, and the next, chains were viciously being pulled and tugged around inside his body. Before he knew it, he was on the ground vomiting blood, bile, and what looked like black sludge.

Maybe that was his sanity. He didn't doubt it overmuch.

But he grew slightly worried when the black sludge would not stop quite literally _falling_ out of his mouth. It felt like his whole body was on fire with some intense, white-hot flame. Everything was twisting. His body was trying to shift but was failing miserably, and he felt bones wrench and muscles tear and sinew snap as he tried to compensate. The black sludge, when it hit the ground, sounded like old rusted metal shattering against the stone, and soon there was a sizeable pool that was staining his fingers. No doubt it already stained his chin. There was such a horrible pain everywhere that he couldn't even cry out in alarm or fear, and his worry slowly began to escalate until he tried to sit back onto his knees, staring at the king with wide eyes.

But even then, the sludge would not stop flowing forth. It came with or without heaves, simply working its way up his throat and spilling over his lips and getting _everywhere_, and all of the people were looking on with horror.

He didn't know how long his throat felt like a misguided waterfall. But he knew that after it finally stopped, he had to fall to his hands again and simply shudder. He half-heartedly began to take stock of his injuries.

A broken rib. A leg whose skin had rent itself and was now bleeding. A chest cavity filled with blood that he began to cough up, leaning his forehead onto his wrist for support. Finally, it ended, because in one blood-curdling cough, he hacked up the last link of chain in his entire body. It was barbed, rusted. It had been the hardest to remove from his system by far.

But it was over, and all Kakashi wanted to do now was sleep off the pain.

--

_I've never been in love._

_Your human body seems to disagree._

_That isn't love._

_Isn't it?_

_You're describing something I don't know._

_You don't know love, correct? All you know is _procreation_, whatever the hell that is. Whatever the hell _wolves_ do._

_A Shifter can't procreate with a human._

_Can't they?_

_No._

_You tried to before._

_You're describing something I don't know._

_What do they call those birds that only know how to say one thing?_

_I don't know..._

_See? There you go again, hiding behind your shit. You _tried_ to have some nice, pleasurable, human _sex_ with your charge before, didn't you?_

_That was because of our link._

_What about your link?_

_She took advantage of it. Again._

_How?_

_I felt her stupid human passion in my stupid human body._

_But you liked it._

_What makes you say that?_

_Because you've been looking like a human more and more and more._

_I haven't._

_Ooh, so scathing. Haven't you, though?_

_Shut up!_

_Haven't you, though?_

_Get out of my head!_

_You liked it, didn't you?_

_No!_

_You don't want to really kill her._

_What do you know?_

_Those thoughts that make your mouth water aren't about killing anymore. Maybe they never really were. Maybe you're just sick._

_Why do you care?_

_You want to make sweet, sweet, human love to her. Or do you like it better sour?_

_Leave me alone!_

_Stop cringing! I'll leave you alone as soon as you prove me _wrong_._

--

Kakashi vomited himself awake. _That_ had not been a pleasant after-shock dream. And he could swear that the voice speaking to him had been someone familiar. It wasn't Tsunade. It wasn't Shizune. It wasn't even his _father_.

He blanched.

Oh Kami. It had been his own voice. And now he recognized it—yes, his human self had towered over his wolf form, spewing spiteful accusations and snarling at his cringing gray-furred body like a wolf would. Only, it seemed as though his human form, in the dream, had the mind of a wolf, and his wolf form the mind of a human.

Neither, he recognized with some apprehension, had the mind of a Shifter.

He felt feverish, but that was no surprise. After all, he _had_ been separated from Sakura.

Wait.

_He'd been separated from Sakura._

Jolting himself upright (as much effort as that took), he rushed forward and rammed his human shoulder against the bars of his cell. When that didn't work, he fell to shaking them with weak, fevered hands, and then to gnawing on them with the mouth of a wolf, though that only served to hurt his jaw.

"Woken up, huh?" the guard by the opposite wall asked.

Kakashi looked up at him warily, releasing the bar in his mouth. He wasn't about to grace this man with words.

"You look like you're feeling better."

Kakashi recognized that voice, that dark hair, that tan face, the sickly stench of smoke clinging to his skin...

"It's you. _Asuma_." He ground out the name as though it tasted horrid.

"Honored you remember me," Asuma said. "You all healed up?"

"Why do you care?" Kakashi asked, standing as a human and crossing his arms to level the slightly unfair playing field.

_You want to make sweet, sweet human love to her. Or do you like it better sour?_

He ignored the taunting words of his dream. They weren't true. He just wouldn't let them be true. He couldn't afford for them to be true.

"You ever hear of a Shade named Rin?"

"Who the hell said my name? Asuma, you bastard! Come here, and I'll rip your balls off!"

There was some jostling in the neighboring cell. Kakashi heard the tinkle of shackles. Rin, whoever she was, seemed a little crazy—just like every other Shade he'd met.

"Now I have. What about it?"

The jostling continued until Asuma threw something that looked like a bone into her cell. She dove toward it with such vigor that it snapped audibly, although that might have just been because the bone was flimsy. It was odd, she'd been quiet up until this point. Unless Kakashi was in a different cell, which _was_ a possibility.

And then he thought, _Why haven't I just turned into a mouse and wiggled my way out of here?_

_One,_ his inner voice said (the likes of which was becoming increasingly annoying), _you still want to love Sakura, so leaving her here is out of the question. Two, it would take you more than six hours to find your way out of this place, and by then you'd be a dead man, and three, try shifting into something small enough to fit in between these bars._

Thoughtfully, Kakashi tried.

Nothing happened.

The knights were smart and had put up wards.

Kakashi sighed.

"You'll be fighting her as soon as you're both hungry enough."

"Sounds delicious," Kakashi said with a grin. He saw Asuma flinch slightly and glorified in it. "Shifters always do love the taste of Shades, and vice versa, I'll have you know."

Asuma said nothing, and stiff-legged, walked away. It seemed as though Kakashi had just confirmed something for him. He wondered what.

--

When Yamato took Sakura to bed that night with him, they didn't do anything Kakashi wouldn't approve of. Perhaps that was to honor his "memory," as Sakura irrationally put it, worried that he would die down in the dankness of the cell. Yamato just held her and listened to her prattle off little gibberish stories that he couldn't even begin to get the gist of.

Poor girl. She was worried sick. She obviously cared about Kakashi on some level other than the fact that he was her former protector, and while part of Yamato felt a bit miffed at this, part of him respected and loved Sakura all the more for it.

To be able to love a bastard like Kakashi on _any_ level seemed a feat of its own. And for twenty years, Sakura had put up with her unrequited love and his hate which was just as passionate, verging on the point of obsession.

Yamato thought about the lamb leg Kakashi tore apart all those days ago. He wasn't pretending it was an ox, the captain realized with a jolt. He was pretending it was _Sakura_, or someone he hated just as much, like Yamato himself. Or maybe (and recently, this became a more likely proposition) Kakashi was taking out his self-loathing upon the dead lamb, leading Yamato to muse, why did Kakashi hate himself so much?

He supposed he would never understand Shifter logic, but tomorrow was the day they had to spring him free. From Asuma's report earlier, it sounded as though Kakashi was already up on his feet.

The Shade Rin would be easy to kill in her feral state. They could feed Kakashi her blood, and then get out of Konoha Keep faster than a bat-puma chimera could fly.

Yamato could only hope that was remarkably fast.

--

Kakashi was half-asleep with his deer's body pressed up against the cell bars, his silver fur poking through. He'd tried rutting them with his antlers, but to no avail—he just slipped and hurt his head and the Shade Rin laughed a jackal's laugh at him. He told her that she could chew on her own tail before lying down.

He was so bored and emotionally hurt and confused that he tried something he'd never tried before: he _tried_ being a chimera.

He had to admit, it was difficult holding the shape of a deer with paws, but he had no doubt that it was made easier due to his chimera's eye. What he was doing must have been impossible for any other Shifter, not that he knew any other than Genma...

Speaking of which, Genma was right. Kakashi really _was_ a chimera. With shifting abilities, of course. The realization stung all the same. He'd become something he loathed.

Which led him to the question, _why did he loathe chimeras_? Well, that was obvious. King Sarutobi tried to burnKakashi's people, but the chimeras were left running rampant throughout the country, even if they mostly stuck to the borders.

Vaguely, he wondered if he would be accepted among those foul-mouthed brutes when he was rudely jarred out of his thoughts by Yamato's voice.

"Are you awake?"

He hadn't even heard the bastard coming, and Kakashi had a mind to throw him a punch through the bars. He stood up as a human and reached through, but the knight captain was wisely (and annoyingly) out of range.

"There's an answer for you," Kakashi spat.

"Relax. We killed that Shade girl," Yamato said, putting his hands up.

"What?" Kakashi asked, frozen. He hadn't even heard it.

"Yes, and I have the keys to your cell, so if you calm down, I can let you out and you can have a bite to eat." He held up the keys. Kakashi eyed him warily for a few seconds before his stomach began a swift churning. The sound of it rumbling and twisting rang out embarrassingly loud in the hallway. Yamato laughed as he tried to find which key unlocked the cell.

"When was the last time you ate?"

"I don't remember," Kakashi grumbled, shouldering his way past as soon as the door was open. "But mention a Shade for dinner and I get hungry either way. Especially when it's an annoying one like her."

Rin's cell door was already open, and Sakura was standing to one side with her arms crossed. Kakashi could tell she was trying hard to ignore him, but he paid no attention to her as soon as he saw the dark blood still leaking from Rin's open neck.

She was still in the shape of a jackal—unfortunately quite small and thin—but Kakashi's raging hunger quickly took over and he fell forward as a wolf to gorge himself on her flesh.

It was bitter, but _so_ delicious. He couldn't stop a delighted little bark escaping his mouth as he ate and ate and ate, and then Yamato wrapped those strong arms that smelled like wood around Kakashi's middle and pulled him back. Kakashi didn't want to let go. He struggled, and Rin's liver snapped out of her and into his delighted mouth. He chewed happily as Yamato pulled him out of the cell and shut the door.

When Kakashi finally swallowed and made himself decent (Yamato looked quite stricken while Sakura looked like she'd seen worse, which she had), he stood as a masked human and glared at the knight.

"Why did you pull me away?" he asked. "I didn't even get to the heart."

"That's disgusting," Yamato said sourly in response. "And you'll throw up if you eat more."

"Want to bet?" Kakashi asked, crossing his arms. He looked longingly at the half-eaten Shade lying on the cool stone floor, and then at Yamato and Sakura, who had provided it for him. This would be the first time he'd ever thanked a human. And hopefully the last. "Thank you," he said after a long pause in which Yamato looked like he was deliberating taking Kakashi up on his challenge. Both humans looked startled, but Kakashi had crooked his jaw as though what he'd just said tasted foul.

At least neither of them had said "Be grateful" to inspire it.

"You're welcome," Yamato said tightly. "But we should go. Come on. You were making quite a lot of noise and Gai's dungeon duties start soon."

"Gai?" Kakashi asked, feeling his anger begin to rise. "He's that idiot who tried to steal my necklace! Where is he? I'll kill him!"

"You're blood drunk," Yamato snapped, grabbing Kakashi by the wrist and beginning to pull him and Sakura down the aisles. "Don't be just as stupid."

So Kakashi wrenched himself free and turned into a wolf, trotting quickly at the humans' heels.

Then they rounded the corner and bumped into Gai.


	8. A Torn Limb Tears His Heart

A/N: To answer a startling review by anonymous user Jessy, no, this is not going to be a SakuraYamatoKakashi story. I'm sure they had orgies in the fourteen-hundreds, but not in this story, my friend. A threesome is out of the question.

I hopefully succeeded in freaking out my mom in the last chapter, though I'm pretty sure she's resigned to the fact that some of the things I write are less than appropriate.

Anyway, in this chapter, Kakashi shocks everyone! I hope you enjoy seeing him change.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

**Shifting Life  
****A Torn Limb Tears His Heart**

Captain Yamato was not a practiced liar. Asuma had known him for years, and there were always telltale signs. A scratching of the nose here, a hitched breath there, a frown there, an incomplete story there. This time, Yamato was lying. He wasn't telling Asuma the whole story, and he'd frowned plenty of times during the meeting.

He'd called Kakashi a Shade. But it was quite obvious that Kakashi wasn't—red blood, the repeated references to Shifter culture as opposed to Shade—and for a while, Asuma wondered whether Yamato just really hated shape changers and so categorized them all the same.

But no. He was much too defensive. If he really hated shape changers, it wouldn't have mattered to him what Kakashi was, and he wouldn't have been so protective of the thing. So while they all slept before taking Kakashi to the castle, Asuma held a private conference with Gai, and they discussed exactly what to do.

--

It was Gai's turn to watch over Kakashi and Rin. It was his turn to stoke the fires between them, knowing that one was a Shifter and the other a true Shade. It was his turn to taunt them both with food and lash them both with harsh words.

But as he rounded the corner, thinking over what he might say to them to get them both irritated, Captain Yamato ran smack into his chest, Lady Sakura and Kakashi right behind him.

Kakashi looked nothing short of murderous. Before Gai could draw his sword, the great wolf had leaped upon him and knocked him to the ground, baring long white fangs the length of a man's forearm into his face. And before Gai could call for help or remember that he had a Shadebane knife in his pocket, those fangs were in his neck.

--

Just as soon as Kakashi felled Gai, he leaped up and away, following Yamato and Sakura down another corridor. Blood dripped from his fangs and jaws, and worried about the trail that it lay down on the stone floor as they ran, he changed into a human, covering his face with his mask. They would be gone long before Gai's shift was over, but Kakashi had smelled Shadebane on him, and was disconcerted.

"That was good and quick," Yamato said, sounding pleased.

"I thought he was your friend," Kakashi said in response.

"He was," Yamato said curtly.

"Where are we going?" Kakashi asked.

"The stables. I have a horse tacked, and then we can get out of here," Yamato replied.

The corridors began to slope upward and then out into a small alleyway that Kakashi didn't recognize. As Yamato led him and Sakura down the narrow passage, Kakashi said, "Do you think anyone will find out?"

"Almost certainly," Yamato replied, "which is why we have to move fast. We have approximately six hours to get as much distance between us and this place as possible, maybe less."

The stables were just around the corner, and Kakashi noted with some respect that Yamato had chosen an enduring-looking brown stallion for his steed. Kakashi changed himself into his horse form and quickly got Sakura up onto his back just as Yamato leaped into his own saddle.

With a few swift kicks, the earth was churning beneath powerful hooves as they dashed off into the mist that was beginning to choke the air.

--

Kakashi could not run for six hours. He had never really run very far after he was bound to Sakura. His heart was weak for it, and after about thirty minutes, his muscles began to burn. His heart was pounding and steam rolled off of his body in wet, sticky waves into the surrounding mist. The other horse was no better off, and Yamato seemed to notice this. He called for a halt, and the three looked about them, Kakashi sucking in great gulps of air.

The mist was thicker now than it was when they had left. It was difficult to see beyond a few feet in front of them.

"Let's rest here awhile," Kakashi suggested. "No one will see us."

Yamato nodded warily, and Sakura climbed off of Kakashi's back. He turned into a bare-chested human and rubbed his face and neck with the towel that appeared wrapped around his arm while Yamato tended his own horse. Sakura watched with avid fascination as Kakashi rubbed his mouth free of dried blood, spitting into the dirt and crouching to grab some grass and scrub his mouth free of anything lingering. Then she turned away and sat down.

"Can you smell anything, Kakashi?" Yamato asked.

Kakashi spat out the grass in his mouth and sniffed. "No," he said. "But then again, my body's burning up and all I can smell right now is my sweat. Give me a minute to cool down and ask me again later." He rubbed his stomach sourly. "I'll be surprised if I don't colic from all that running. Do you have anything for that, Sakura?"

She turned to him slowly, as though shocked he was asking her for anything. When he cleared his throat, she started and began rummaging through her bag, blushing furiously.

"I'm sure I have something," she murmured. "Here it is. I can make some dogwood tea."

"We can't risk lighting a fire," Yamato said. "Kakashi, just walk yourself out." He jerked his thumb toward his own horse, who was pacing back and forth rather smartly. Was he trained to do that?

Slightly impressed and slightly annoyed that a horse had more sense than he did, Kakashi turned back into a horse and paced. He snorted.

"I need a bath," he grunted.

"So do we," Sakura said. "We're all dirty and smelly, but I can't even see three feet in front of me. There's no way we can find a river in all of this fog."

After Kakashi had finished walking himself out, he lay down as a thin-coated wolf, stretched out from nose to tail. His chest rose and fell with great heaving sighs, breathing in the cold air and expelling the heat from his body. He twitched slightly when he felt Sakura's hand alight on his side, but relaxed soon afterward when she began sending her pulsing healing energy into his heart and lungs. She was strengthening them for the future, and Kakashi could only feel grateful as the incessant burning in his body began to die away and his heart beat more assuredly and sent needed blood throughout his system.

Then Yamato stooped down and ruffled the fur between his ears.

"How does it feel to be unbound?" he asked, his voice soft lest someone else be in the vicinity.

"Weird," Kakashi said. He sat up and allowed both of the humans to continue whatever they were doing. Whether it was buttering him up or just trying to comfort him, it felt so incredibly good that all the wolf could do was lean into it. The humans laughed.

"It's a far cry from being kicked, isn't it?" Sakura asked, and Kakashi looked at her. "Much more preferable."

"You could say that," he said, "though I'm not used to it or being unbound. I can feel my own sensations again. It's... different."

Sakura drew her hand away, though Yamato kept scratching Kakashi right between his ears. Kakashi had a wolfish grin on his face and his eyes were closed. It seemed as though the escape had brought them all closer together, even if it felt odd and somewhat wrong.

"Sorry," Sakura said.

"For what?" Kakashi asked, his eyes snapping open as he looked at Sakura again. Yamato pulled away and rolled into a sit from his crouch, looking expectantly at his love.

"For making you live like that for twenty years." Sakura rubbed her hands along her arms. "It wasn't my choice, you know, and I always wished I could reverse it. Sometimes when you were sleeping I'd ask Grandmother if she could do something, but she said she couldn't."

"I got used to it after a while," Kakashi said, eyes now downcast. "Now I'll have to get used to this. I'm going to go hunt." And he dashed off into the mist.

Yamato crept toward Sakura and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry," he said, kissing her forehead. "Everything's going to be fine. He's grateful to the both of us for releasing him and getting him out. He actually let us pet him without protest. I thought he would have gnawed off my arm." He smiled slightly and sat down beside her.

"He hates me," Sakura whispered. "He'll never stop."

Yamato cooed softly to her, whispering little nothings into her ear, sounds of love and kindness and calm, and when he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, she leaned in to him.

"He'll come around," Yamato said, rubbing her shoulder as he rocked her back and forth. "He doesn't really hate you."

But Sakura only began to cry, her choked off sobs heaving her shoulders as she clutched at Yamato's vest, and he could only hold her closer and rest his cheek on the top of her head.

--

They waited until Kakashi and Yamato's mount had rested, and then they plodded on more slowly. It was early evening now, and the thick mist that had aided their escape had cleared. They had descended a southern slope and were now out of sight of the castle, heading towards one of the Fire Country's thick forests that lay just beyond the farmland.

More than once, Kakashi was hungrily tempted by the sheep and cattle that they passed, and Sakura had to jerk on the reins to hold him steady and keep him in line.

What they had to do now was find a small trading village where no one knew their names or faces, and buy long cloaks to wear. Sakura, it had been decided, eventually would need a bow and arrow. Yamato needed to discard his knight's clothing and cheek protectors to give him a different appearance. Sakura, with her bright hair, especially needed a hood. They had to look like hunters, nothing more.

Once they got beyond the forest's southern border, they would be safe in an isolated part of the country where knights hardly dared to tread and only the strongest of peoples survived. In that community, Yamato knew, Shifters and chimeras worked alongside humans and beasts. That community was untouched by Sarutobi's regime, though it still lay within his territory.

The only problem was that this community was nearly a six month's ride away. It was doubtful that the three of them could survive that long in a forest as dense as Fire's south. Besides the fact that Yamato wasn't quite sure where that community lay. They were extremely secretive, after all. He scarcely remembered his last visit.

But Yamato also knew that the warning horns would blow soon. Their six-hour head start was almost up, and they needed to find new identities before then.

--

The warning blows never came. Either they didn't reach Yamato's ears, or they just weren't blown, which seemed suspicious in and of itself.

For several days, they traveled until they came to a little fishing village on the edge of a rushing river. Yamato, having buried his cheek protectors, vest, and gloves, asked an old man if there was any place where he and his wife could barter for some clothing.

The old man was quite helpful, obviously having not heard any warning of any sort either, and pointed out that down the road, there was a tailor's shop that would do Yamato and his lovely wife fine.

Kakashi was quiet. He had to be. But he seemed dim and distant, and every time a crow called, he started and Sakura had to kick or pull him back into line. He tossed his mane against the reins, the red surrounding his irises speaking of how weary he was, but Yamato knew that stopping now meant certain death.

The tailor's shop was small and drab, but the clothes the woman offered where thick and warm. Yamato had some coin, and thankfully, the thick woolen, hooded cloaks were not expensive enough so that he had to barter. But there would be no bow and arrow to be found for Sakura here, so before Kakashi's itch sprung upon him, they left the village far behind and continued south, hidden safely under their new clothing. Sakura's hood was so low over her brow that Yamato couldn't see her eyes, and not even a sliver of her hair escaped the tight plaiting Kakashi did for her.

Yamato watched with a weary fascination the night after they'd bought the cloaks and Sakura asked her former protector to help her do up her hair. Yamato thought Kakashi would refuse—he himself would gladly help his love in any sort of way—but the Shifter shocked him by crouching down behind her and braiding her long pink locks tightly enough to stay wrapped but loosely enough so that she wouldn't scratch or pull at it. He did it with such _tenderness_, too. Yamato was surprised Kakashi had that kind of softness in him, for all of the brutality he'd shown so far.

And as he watched that night, a lazy smile spread its way across Yamato's face, and he found himself just beginning to respect the creature before him.

--

He hadn't been asked to do up her hair since she was very young. When she was young, he resented it, but felt resigned to do it, and was careful not to cause her pain only because it would make him uncomfortable as well. But now, unbound from her, Kakashi found himself quite willing to be close to her, to reestablish the connection that they once shared. It was an odd feeling, having her in his saddle during the day and watching her sleep next to Yamato at night, but pleasurable.

Kakashi almost felt... happy for her.

So when she asked him to plait her hair while she stared into the flames of the fire, he feared that refusing would drain the last bit of happiness from her face. He'd done so much to hurt her already, that face was already wan with bitterness and silence. He doubted he could bear to hurt her any more than he'd already had. So he did what he was asked, tenderly, and could not stop his human hand afterwards from brushing across her shoulder and nape, and could not stop his human head to dip forward ever so slightly to smell the smell of travel that clung to her.

He was thankful that with his human eyes, blinded by the contrast of bright fire and dark night, Yamato wouldn't be able to see the details of what Kakashi was doing.

But he felt Sakura shiver beneath his touch.

—

Kakashi woke with a stomach that was growling painfully. He rolled over and groaned before sitting up.

"Where's the river?" he asked to no one in particular, for no one was awake yet.

He glanced around. Dew had beaded on the trampled grass and the char that clung to the fire pit. It had collected on Kakashi's mask (he didn't know why he still wore it, and summoned it away) and his skin. It had collected on the fur of his cloak and in his hair, and when he turned to look at Yamato and Sakura, who were curled tightly together to keep away the cold, he saw that it had even collected on the woolen clothing they had bought several days ago.

They'd passed the river yesterday, and had bathed and fished, but the fish was gone now, and Kakashi had expended energy carrying Sakura all day yesterday.

He reached over and shook Yamato by the shoulder. Yamato cracked an eye to look up at him, then rolled over, disentangling himself from Sakura and sitting up.

"Morning," Kakashi said cheerily.

Yamato looked at Kakashi again, and his eyes widened. "Your mask!" he gasped.

"There's no need to wear it anymore," Kakashi said. "I trust you."

The expression Yamato gave him then was something like being blessed, as though Kakashi had just given him the entire world on a silver platter. It was an awkward feeling, so Kakashi stood up and away with a strange little smile. No one had ever given him that look before, like they were grateful.

_Be grateful._

His fists clenched slightly underneath the shelter of his cloak as he said, "We have to hunt today. The grass is trampled here, meaning that there should be a herd of something somewhere. I'm going to go and scout. If I'm not back in two hours, come and get me."

Then, as a wolf, he was off into the tall grass beyond the campsite like a bowshot.

--

Chimera deer! Half caribou, half horse, they were quite intelligent, and very territorial. Kakashi could only vaguely smell wolf in the area. The wolves that had tried hunting this herd must have vacated by now to seek easier pickings. Even if chimera deer got sick often, they could still fight like chimera.

The only thing was, that if they were to hunt these beasts, Yamato would need to use his thicker arrows, maybe even his sword, and Kakashi would need to be the strongest, fastest form he had, which unfortunately, was a wolf only slightly larger than his scouting form.

Sakura, for safety's sake, would have to be kept out of the way at the campsite. Yamato and Kakashi could direct the inevitable stampede along the ditch about half a mile down the valley.

Easy targets.

--

Yamato and Sakura were up and dressed when Kakashi returned from his scouting trip. Shaking the dew from his shoulders, he relayed what he'd seen to Yamato, stressing the slight amount of danger involved with intelligent, strategic beasts like chimera deer.

"I've seen the leader," Kakashi said, standing as a human. "His antlers are sharp, and he scented me just as I was leaving, so be careful of him. He'll have scouts prepared."

"Don't you think you're giving them too much credit?" Yamato asked. "They're just deer."

"Don't you think I'd know enough about my own cousins?" Kakashi snapped as a reply. "They're chimera." He turned to Sakura. "Can you have dressings prepared for when we get back, just in case?"

"Of course!" she said. She knew better than to argue. As Yamato swung up onto his horse, she continued, "Be safe, you two."

They gave her fleeting smiles before going off.

--

_Dammit! I can't see the damned flea bag anywhere!_ As Yamato stood downwind behind a boulder on his horse, looking at the fantastic herd before him, he could not see Kakashi on the other side. It had taken them an hour to reach this place at a steady trot, and now they were going on a hunt.

_Wait for the howl..._

He readied his bow.

When the call came, long and high and crisp, Yamato kicked his horse into action, steering it with his toes and heels as he began to race after the now thundering herd. After a few seconds of running, Kakashi came loping up beside him.

"There's a young one within a bowshot over there!" he panted, nodding his head toward a young male that was just beginning to sprout its horns for the first time. "I'll push it towards you so you can get its neck!" Then he veered away.

Once the young deer was in sight, Yamato drew back his bowstring so that the fletching rested on his cheek, then fired straight into the deer's throat. It fell and skidded to a halt, Kakashi skidding to a halt beside it.

The rest of the herd cantered on, no longer worried about their own lives, and Yamato grinned at the wolf with their success.

Kakashi did not grin back.

--

There was an air of haughtiness about them. As a mature female passed, Kakashi heard her bleat, "Yes, yes! Get them! Make them pay for killing my son, Leader!"

When he heard that, Kakashi whipped his head around, not noticing Yamato's grin, and stared, mouth agape, at the huge chimera that was running directly toward his comrade at a blinding speed, his head lowered.

"Yamato!" Kakashi barked, running towards the lead deer with all the speed he could muster.

No... He was too far away...!

That huge rack hit the horse and dug deeply into its side and heart, killing it instantly. When the leader jerked away, he was quick enough and strong enough so that the horse snapped from his antlers, its spine broken. Yamato rolled down the steep incline leading to the grassy ditch the herd had been chased alongside, and Kakashi, ignoring the danger of the chimera king, darted after him.

But the chimera deer seemed satisfied, and trotted after his herd.

--

Yamato's grin faded as soon as Kakashi whirled around. His eyes widened when the wolf yelled out his warning, but all thought was slammed from his mind when those fearsome antlers gored the flesh of his horse, narrowly missing his right leg.

It all happened so fast that Yamato didn't even have time to hear the snap of his horse's spine or notice that he was suddenly flying through the air. He landed with a harsh thud on a steep incline and then began a swift roll down the side of the ditch Kakashi had warned him about. The earth was loose and pulled away with his dragging fingers, and the slope was so steep anyone would snap their leg trying to run down.

Indeed, as he tumbled, Yamato suddenly felt wild with pain. He let out a shout as he landed on his back, clutching his shin while trying to assess if there was any other damage.

His left leg was bleeding badly. The pant leg was torn, and Yamato could see the fractured bone.

Through his suddenly hazed vision, he could see a silver shock of hair as Kakashi carefully slid down the slope on his back, hopping up on two legs before falling on his hands and knees at Yamato's side. His mask was back up—a sign of fear?—and there was intense worry in his eyes.

"Yamato!" Kakashi said.

Yamato had stopped clutching his leg by now. His vision was growing hazier.

Kakashi grimaced and growled. "Tenzou!" he said.

Yamato grunted his surprise before slipping into unconsciousness.

--

Kakashi felt his body begin to tremble. No. No! This couldn't be happening! Yamato was not lying there with a wound that was potentially lethal! Not Yamato. Not... Tenzou!

Kakashi looked at the wound. There was dirt in it, and it was still bleeding. He panicked for a moment before falling on it as a wolf, tearing away the bits of cloth and licking away the blood and grime in a frantic effort to keep his comrade from gaining any sort of infection.

_Get him off the ground,_ his mind demanded, and Kakashi stood as a human, his mask on to hide his frightened face. He curled his arms beneath Tenzou's shoulders and knees and stood up, then went as fast as he could back to where Sakura was. It would take three hours at least.

Kakashi howled out her name and hoped that she would hear it.

--

She dropped the pan of water she was scrubbing when she heard the faint, _"Sakura!" _on the wind, and recognized Kakashi's voice. Then, fearing the worst, she grabbed the rucksack full of the dressings she had prepared and raced towards where the two said they would be. South-southwest.

--

When she saw them, she couldn't believe her eyes. Kakashi was staggering under a weight that quite probably equaled his own. He looked exhausted and worried and heartsick, and blood was dripping down the leg of the body he held in his arms...

Tears sprang to her eyes.

Tenzou.

"What happened?" she asked, as Kakashi set him down, turned into a wolf, and began licking at his leg.

"The leader of the herd gored his horse and sent him flying down the ditch we were trying to run alongside," Kakashi said, pulling away as a human once more and allowing Sakura to begin her work. "I saw his leg slice open on some shale and pulled out what slivers I could see, but he fractured his shin."

The leg was red with blood and swelling slightly, but not so much as to be overly worrisome. The fracture was a thin crack along the shin, and with some medication, would take only three weeks to heal, at the most. Tenzou would need stitches before he lost any more blood, because the sick grayness of his skin was not reassuring.

"You did a good thing licking his wound like that," Sakura said as she prepared her needle with a sulfur match. "You probably saved his life."

But Kakashi looked anything but grateful for the praise. He began pacing as a wolf, whimpering every so often when he saw Sakura's needle pull together flesh that she poured wine over to keep infection away. Finally, she grew tired of it, her old ardor returned in light of the moment.

"Make yourself useful and go get the carcasses."

It wasn't a question. It was an order. And even if they were unbound, old habits die hard, and he would no doubt follow her command.

"I want to stay here," he ground out, startling her, "with you. And him."

For a moment, Sakura froze. She looked up into those bicolored eyes that were human again now, seeing nothing in the red and fear behind the black. Then she swallowed and whispered, "It's not a request. It's an order. Please go, Kakashi."

And then he shocked her. Of his own free well, he leaned across Yamato and pressed his masked lips to her forehead for a second before drawing away and leaping into the air as a falcon.

He'd whispered against her skin, "Please don't let him die."


	9. He Sees a Village and Leaps with Joy

A/N: Whoo, these chapters are coming along more smoothly than I thought. I found a great picture of the type of terrain they're in during the first part of this chapter. The URL is here: www.peakbagger-paul .com/washington3/ravine-from-lion-head.jpg

Just take out the spaces.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

**Shifting Life  
****He Sees a Village and Leaps with Joy**

The sun was beginning to set as Kakashi flew over the land with wings of silver, his sharp falcon eyes searching for the crowd of carrion birds that would signify the carcasses of the dead.

"Are you going for the chimera or the horse, my friend?"

Kakashi turned in flight so that his wings were perpendicular to the ground to gaze unblinkingly at the vulture flying beside him. A vulture like that would ruin the carcasses—he would tear open the liver and spew the poison everywhere until the entire body was unable to be eaten by any but him and his selfish brethren.

It seemed as though, unless Kakashi could find some rabbits or something, that Tenzou and Sakura would be going hungry tonight. He couldn't let that happen.

So without answering the vulture whose wingspan nearly doubled his own, Kakashi folded his wings to his side and rocketed to the ground once he saw the chimera deer, its body being jostled by the hungry mouths that were feasting on it.

As a cougar, he shoved the birds and foxes aside.

"Has anyone here yet claimed the liver?" he asked, a paw on the open rib cage of the carcass. The vulture had landed and was watching him interestingly. Had he never seen a Shifter before?

One of the foxes, his coat thickening in light of the coming autumn, barked his cheery laugh and said, "Whass wrong, selfish kitty? No room for us? I took that liver—tasted right good, mate!"

"Did it burst?" Kakashi asked, taking a threatening step toward the fox.

"Aye, in me mouth!" the fox laughed. "If you're lookin' ta feed, ye'll be tastin' it inna rest of the deer!"

Kakashi hissed at the dirt, then took off as a falcon once again. If the humans ate that carcass, especially Tenzou, who was so weak at this time, meant certain sickness after all of those disgusting creatures had stuck their faces in all the organs they could reach. Chimera, like bears, held powerful poison in their systems. They were to be treated carefully and immediately if they were to be eaten at all.

The horse came next, and he saw it quickly enough. But the sight that met his eyes startled him, and he landed as a wolf about fifty paces away.

The lead deer was standing there, gazing at Kakashi with bored eyes.

"You killed a son of my herd," the lead deer said, and his booming voice made Kakashi wince. He was at least the size of a bear, and his throat trembled when he spoke.

"Yes, my lord," Kakashi said, "but you see..."

"I have killed your man's horse. We are even, Shifter, but I should warn you not to come to this place again. This horse is mine, you cannot have it since I have killed it. We will give it to the wolves of the north so they do not prey on us for some time."

"My lord, I..." Kakashi began, but with a fierce snort, the deer cut him off.

"Your campsite has been trampled," the deer said, "though your woman was wise and brought things with her proper. Climb that rise again, Shifter, and you will die."

Kakashi didn't move. His legs had locked into position, staring at this fearsome king whose power on the plains rivaled Sarutobi's in the cities.

The deer snorted again, and Kakashi bolted.

When he reached the slope, not having slowed down, he didn't have time to readjust his speed, and so tumbled over the edge, skidding the sliding against the shale, receiving cuts and scrapes on his way back down to Sakura and Tenzou, who were waiting just several meters down the path. He finally landed on his side with a sharp, "Oof!" and sat up as a human, staring at the deer that was overlooking the pass but would never be able to come down for fear of killing himself on the shale.

"Kakashi!" Sakura gasped, running over to him and putting a hand on his smarting shoulder. It startled him, and he pulled away, his breath shaking in his lungs.

He held a hand to his side and let out a hissing breath. "I think I broke a rib," he said.

"What happened?" Sakura asked, immediately pressing her hand where he directed her to. She began to send her healing energies through, and he winced as the bone snapped back into place as a reaction.

"I had to see if the carcasses were okay for us to eat," Kakashi hissed, lying back against the slope as she continued to soothe his aching side. "Chimera have poison in their livers like bear, so I wanted to make sure it was safe. The deer was poisoned by some idiot fox that wanted the liver and was immune to its poison. The king deer had claimed the horse."

"What?" Sakura asked, aghast.

"He said that we were even for killing one of his herd," Kakashi continued, "and that if I ever climbed up there again, I would die. He trampled our campsite, but he said you'd brought with you everything that was needed. Did you?" He opened his red eye to look at her.

Sakura nodded and withdrew her hand. "Your rib should be okay within a few hours," she said.

"But we still don't have any food," Kakashi said, trying to sit up and failing. He was too exhausted.

"I'll set some snares," Sakura said, "like you taught me. You're much too weak right now to hunt, and you haven't eaten all day."

Kakashi narrowed his gaze. Neither had she, but snares took less energy than stalking. He rested back on the grass.

"Here," Sakura said, passing him her dwindling stock of wine. "Use it on your cuts and then wrap them. Under no circumstances can you risk getting infection."

"Right," Kakashi said, reaching for the bottle and gauze she held out. Then she was gone like a shadow in the darkening night.

"Be careful," he whispered, before starting on his wounds.

--

Tenzou woke while Kakashi was dabbing at the gash on his shoulder, and at the man's faint groan, the Shifter's eyes darted up and stared, his fingers on his wound stilled.

Tenzou sat upright, his leg dragging as he did so, and leaned his back against a tree. He stared hard at Kakashi, though his look, while the Shifter's was one of fear and concern, was merely exhaustion and confusion.

"You... you called me Tenzou," Tenzou said groggily, putting a hand to his forehead as though to steady himself. A wave of nausea gripped him. "W-why?" he asked, trying to quell that vicious, unpleasant feeling.

"I can't believe that's the first thing you say when you wake up after sleeping for five hours," Kakashi retorted, returning to his shoulder. He mopped up some of the blood with the wine-soaked gauze, hissing at the sting.

Tenzou just continued glaring at him. "I know what happened, you ass," he said. "Why did you call me Tenzou instead of my surname like you normally do?"

"I wanted to startle you," Kakashi said, now carefully wrapping his still bleeding shoulder with fresh bandages, "to see if that would keep you awake. It didn't though." He pulled on the end with his teeth, and winced when he tried to reach the hand of the wounded shoulder to help pull the bandages tight. It was clear he was growing frustrated with his inability to do so, as he let out an annoyed growl.

"Come here, let me do that for you," Tenzou offered. He gestured to his own bandaged leg. "It's the least I could do for you, since you got Sakura here on time."

Kakashi seemed to hesitate for a moment before standing and limping over to where Tenzou sat with his legs stretched out in front of him.

Tenzou noticed the limp, but he didn't want to ask about that yet. Sakura was gone, and the skill surrounding his bandaged leg as compared to Kakashi's messy wraps was clearly by her lovely hand. "Where is she, by the way?" he asked.

"Hunting," Kakashi said simply. "Setting snares." The baggy tunic shirt he'd been wearing dissipated into thin air so that Tenzou could reach his shoulder more easily from where he sat. The cut was long and thin and fresh and bleeding, not very deep, but clearly painful. The Shifter had a large bruise on his side and several crooked wraps on his arms and fingers, but Tenzou still wondered about the limp.

"Wasn't our hunt a success?" he asked. "Where's the carcass?"

Taking a shaky breath, Kakashi explained to him what had happened while he'd been asleep, ending with his own tumble down the loose slope above them.

"I think I twisted my hip," he said. "It should be feeling better in a couple of hours, though."

When Tenzou had finished working on Kakashi's shoulder, he tapped the Shifter's broad, pale back as a signal. Kakashi nodded, muttered a small "Thanks" which Tenzou found he was quite grateful for, and then lay down on his unhurt side to face the human beside him. He propped himself up on his good arm, but said nothing.

Tenzou found he was surprisingly comfortable with the silence. Finally, Kakashi spoke.

"You really love her, don't you?" he asked.

Tenzou was caught off guard by the question, but answered it truthfully. "Of course," he said. "I have never loved any woman like I love her."

Kakashi pushed the heel of his hand into his forehead. "I don't understand," he said. "What is love?"

Tenzou blinked. _I wouldn't know. I have never been in love._ That was what the Shifter had said, and he hadn't been lying. He really didn't understand the concept of love.

"Love is..." Tenzou began, crossing his arms, "a wonderful feeling. It hurts sometimes, it really does, like clutching a rose too tightly in your hand and the thorns make you bleed and smart. But it's so beautiful. When you're in love, you want to do anything for him or her, to make them feel the happiest you can make them feel, even at the cost of yourself."

He looked down at the Shifter, who was looking up at him with wary eyes. If he looked hard enough, he might have seen some anger there, crossed with realization and frustration.

Kakashi rolled onto his back and gazed up at a sky that was beginning to turn maroon with its twilight.

"Sounds better than getting kicked," he grunted amicably.

There was a short silence then, which Tenzou broke. "You know, Kakashi," he said, "she really loves you. She loves me more like a brother, but to her, you are everything."

Kakashi grimaced, visible only because his mask was away.

"She'd die for you," Tenzou pressed, "if she had to."

Kakashi looked away. "I was fourteen," he said, "when I was bound to her. I always hated her, _always_. I hated breathing the same air, I hated hearing her thoughts and feeling her sensations. I hated my lack of freedom. I was bound to her for twenty years, such a long time that it makes my head spin now that I'm free. Yet I stay with her. I follow her. But I don't feel like that's what you're saying love is."

"No," Tenzou said, "that's not what I mean by love. You're just following her out of habit. What would you do without her?"

"Probably do something stupid and get myself killed," Kakashi said with a rueful smile.

There was another pause. Kakashi said, "They say a Shifter values his life so much that he'd kill his brother to save himself. Do you believe that?"

"You're the Shifter," Tenzou said. "Tell me if it's true."

"I don't know." Kakashi exhaled long and slow and curled his arm beneath his ear. "You should rest. Sakura should be back soon."

But Tenzou was far from sleeping, even when the rise and fall of Kakashi's chest evened out, his breathing deep and long. He was shocked, to say the least. Kakashi just admitted that he no longer hated Sakura, along with admitting some other things, and this alone was rather striking. Kakashi, up until this point, had not been very kind, and this flowering of seemingly human emotion and speech was both endearing and off-putting (if only because it was so new and strange).

Kakashi was exhausted, that much was clear. He hadn't eaten since the morning, and Sakura wouldn't be back for some time yet. The results of her own hunting would be unclear as well, as hunts were not always successful.

Tenzou looked down at his bandaged leg.

Hunts were not always successful.

"Shit," Tenzou seethed. Both he and Kakashi were injured from a single poor hunt. "Sakura, you had better be all right."

--

When Kakashi awoke, it was to the sweet smell of rabbit stew cooking over a coal fire. The cold night air snapped at his bare face, and his mask instinctively materialized as he sat up, his stomach snarling. He glanced up at the sky. The tilt of the full moon against the blackness told him that it was just after midnight.

Then he heard Sakura giggle, and looked back at her. She was sitting next to Tenzou, stirring the pot with her free hand and covering her mouth with her other.

"Hungry?" Tenzou asked him teasingly.

Kakashi nodded vigorously, then looked at the stew. Had he been a wolf, his tongue would have swept over his muzzle hungrily.

Sakura laughed again and ladled his portion into a tin cup, passing it to him as she gave herself and Tenzou some as well.

Kakashi sipped at the thick, steamy liquid after summoning his mask away, munching happily on the diced rabbit bits and noticing that there was some boiled quail egg in there too, which he gulped whole.

He was done quite soon, surprised that the thick stew at eased his hissing appetite, and settled down as a cat nestled in the grass beside the coal fire. A gentle hand alighted on his shoulder, and he could only purr at the contact. He sensed smiles.

--

The next morning, Kakashi discovered that Tenzou was a Witch. He woke to find the man cooing to the tree he'd been sleeping against, and watched aghast as two twisted branches, about as thick as his wrist, separated themselves from the main tree and crashed softly on to the grass.

They were in the perfect shape of crutches.

"How did you _do_ that?" Kakashi asked in wonder as Tenzou picked them up and tested them. They bore his weight adequately, and he patted the tree trunk in thanks.

"I'm a Witch," Tenzou replied, "born and raised to be able to speak to plants."

As ridiculous as it sounded, Kakashi found himself unduly impressed.

"Are we leaving?" he asked Sakura. The sun was about three hours from its peak.

Sakura nodded and pointed out to the lightly forested moorland that stretched before them beyond the ditch, which seemed to have been eroded as a river of the past. The slope on their opposite side stretched for several hundred meters at a gentle slope, with small, gnarled trees providing good holds in the loose soil.

"The moor will take about two or three months to cross," Sakura said. "It's got trees to hide us, though."

And that was all that really mattered, because, even if the warning horns hadn't sounded yet, Kakashi knew that the knights would be after them until the end.

Kakashi because of his blood.

Tenzou because he had betrayed the crown.

Sakura because she was Tenzou's woman. No doubt they would defile her. Kakashi felt a small growl leave his throat and bottled it up before the humans could hear.

Tenzou had talked to him about love last night. And while Kakashi still didn't quite understand why it was thorny and yet still beautiful (because thorns to him only signified hateful bondage), he knew he felt something for Sakura, unnatural for a Shifter to feel.

It made his stomach clench at night while he watched her sleep next to Tenzou.

And yet, as Kakashi looked at the other human, he realized he had to be grateful for what he had done to protect the both of them. And then he got angry all over again.

_Be grateful_ was an order he didn't take kindly to, and now he was practically ordering himself to do just that.

"Will you be able to get up there with the crutches, Tenzou?" he asked.

"I should be fine," the man replied, and started hobbling his way up the slope with Sakura at his side. Kakashi loped up as a large hare, stopping every once in a while to twitch his nose and ears for signs of danger.

Their journey had truly begun.

--

The moorland, as filled as it was with small oaks and pines, was also filled with eroded ruts and boulders. Thankfully, there was no dangerous shale, but it was easy to tell that Tenzou was having trouble with his crutches. They kept sinking into the loamy soil and tripping him up, and the last time he tripped, Kakashi noticed spots of red on the bandages covering his leg.

"Give Sakura the crutches," Kakashi said at last, becoming a human from his hare form. "They're being more of a nuisance than a help here."

He offered his hand, and when Tenzou took it, the Shifter swung his arm over his shoulder and supported his waist with his opposite wrist, helping the man to walk that way.

Much easier and less worrisome.

Tenzou smiled appreciatively as he limped.

--

There were a surprising number of villages on the moorland. They came to the first within a week, and Kakashi posed as Sakura's cousin to explain for their differences in appearance. (His red eye, of course, was hidden under an eyepatch.) When asked how the trio came to be so beat up, Tenzou explained that they'd tried hunting the chimera deer to the north.

The innkeeper they'd been talking to clicked her tongue.

"I lost my son to those brutes," she said as she filed them in for a room. "You know the leader is fifty years old? He was born before the king came into power."

Kakashi gaped. "_Fifty_?" he asked, shocked. With all their health ailments such as bowel twisting, arthritis, heart failure, and birth defects, Shifters, Shades, and chimera were lucky to live into their forties. Kakashi was one of the lucky ones. No arthritis, a good heart, nothing wrong with his birth, and so far, his stomach was in good shape. But still, he doubted he would live so long.

"Yes," the woman said. "Fifty and counting. You know, before the bridge over the ravine was broken, that herd used to come here all the time. They'd give us their meat and hide in return for grain in the lean times. Quite intelligent, you know, but they've lost their ability to speak with humans. Probably their leader doesn't like to. Well, here is your room key." She handed Sakura a cast iron key that had a _5_ pressed on it.

Seeing Tenzou's crutches, the woman said, "I can have the village doctor sent up to your room, if you like."

"That would be lovely," Tenzou said. Saying that Sakura was a healer and thus calling attention to themselves would not be the smartest thing to do.

So, as they made their way down the hall, the woman called for her daughter to come man her desk while she went out to look for Doctor Hyuuga.

Tenzou all but collapsed on to one of the beds when they reached their room, slipping off his sandal and hissing as he rubbed his hands along his shin.

Sakura crouched down and saw the blood that had accumulated on the bandages, and the red fluid was beginning to stain Tenzou's palms as he continued massaging his pained leg.

She slapped his hand away and pulled the knot that held the bandage together apart, letting the long strip of cloth fall into her hands.

A stitch had come loose, and the splint she'd made for him out of some oak wood had broken, meaning Tenzou's leg was now free to break again.

It wasn't something that was particularly wanted, considering that second breaks were harder to heal.

But Sakura bit her lip. She couldn't do anything. With that Hyuuga man coming soon, if he saw that she was a healer, unwanted attention would be drawn to her. She could say these stitches were simple fieldwork she'd learned to use over her travels, but that she was out of supplies.

Which was true. Hopefully Doctor Hyuuga would sell her something.

He knocked on the door of the room about an hour later, and Kakashi, who had been preening his hawk feathers, became a human and said, "Come in."

Doctor Hyuuga had long dark hair that was pulled away from his face in a loose ponytail, and pale white eyes that seemed to signify blindness.

But how could he be a doctor if he couldn't see...?

"I'm Hyuuga Neji," he said, bowing slightly. "Let's take a look at your leg, shall we, sir?"

Tenzou nodded lightly, and while Neji began pressing his thumb along the stitch line, Kakashi said, "How can you see? I don't mean offense, but your eyes look dead to me."

Neji looked up at him then, with such a cold, crisp gaze that Kakashi's body jerked a little and he stumbled back against the wall, looking somehow violated.

"If I were you, Shifter," Neji said, much to everyone's shock, "I wouldn't be speaking out of turn in this country. Save it for the south."

"How did you...?" Kakashi asked, eyes wide.

"I am a Seer," Neji said, "a certain type of Witch. I see energy, the way it contorts in the body, and this is why I became a doctor. Your energy circles around your heart and lungs and pulsates to your neck before it even begins to reach the rest of your body. A human's energy circulates everywhere evenly."

"My neck...?" Kakashi asked slowly. He touched his throat uncertainly.

"More specifically, your necklace," Neji said. "But don't worry, there aren't any knights here." He gave Kakashi a fleeting smile before returning to look at Tenzou's leg.

Kakashi sagged against the wall before snapping straight and rushing in between Neji's fingers and Tenzou's bleeding shin. His wolf fangs were bared, his hackles raised, his neck and head low even while he regarded those fingers warily.

"Are you trustworthy?" Kakashi snapped. "If you so much as look at any of us the wrong way, do you know where these teeth will be?"

"In my neck, I assume," Neji replied, putting a particular amount of stress on the work _neck_. "But, Shifter, you'll have no problem with me. I have a sister who lives in the south under Lord Namikaze. She is the wife of a Shifter."

Kakashi backed away slowly, then lay down with his side pressed against Sakura's leg.

"And who is your wife?" Sakura asked, beginning to stroke Kakashi's back. "We're headed south."

"If you're looking for her, her name is Uzumaki Hyuuga Hinata, and her husband is Lord Namikaze Uzumaki Naruto. He's a Shifter."

"Have you ever heard of a Shifter named Shiranui Genma?" Kakashi asked.

Neji looked up from rubbing alcohol along Tenzou's wound. "Genma came to this town a few months ago. He said he had to report to Lord Namikaze that a Hatake Kakashi had been captured by the knights."

"If you could send a bird to him," Kakashi said, "we have escaped."

Neji stopped working and looked at the three of them, then smiled. "He will be pleased," he said, and then immediately went back to his work.

"I'll remove these stitches now. They're hastily done to stop the bleeding and are pulling at the surrounding skin." As he worked, ignoring Tenzou's winces and grunts, he asked, "Did you do them, miss?"

"Yes, but you were right, it was just to stop the bleeding," Sakura said. "I'm Sakura by the way. That's Tenzou, and this is Kakashi."

"An honor," Neji said. He pulled out a roll of line and a long needle, held a sulfur match lit beneath it, and without a warning, began stitching up Tenzou's reopened leg.

Kakashi supposed there were worse things. At least the wound had already begun to heal—the bone was no longer visible. But the needle without any anaesthetic seemed to be driving Tenzou as wild as it could. He gripped the bed sheets with trembling hands as he watched Neji pull the needle and thread through his flesh. It seemed he was having major difficulties trying not to scream.

"Do you need a cloth over your eyes?" Kakashi asked sweetly, chuckling slightly. "Oh, my mistake, you'll just get agitated."

"Flea bag!" Tenzou snapped, his fingers giving a sharp twitch as Neji bit off the end of the string and tied a knot.

Neji wrapped the leg without a hitch, then tossed Sakura a flask of what smelled like hard whiskey.

"That's strong enough to get rid of gangrene," he said. He fished around in his pack. "Some opium might be helpful to get him to sleep sometimes, as well." He tossed a packet of leaf rolls to her.

Then he stood. "If you don't mind, I'll be going now," he said. "Get some rest, Tenzou."

"Thanks, Doc," Tenzou said with a tired smile.

Neji left with a smile in return, and Tenzou reached his hand out for the whiskey.

"It's not to drink, love," Sakura said. "If you want to sleep, have a smoke."

Tenzou looked worn out and weary, and as he lit one of the opium smokes and inhaled, he sighed and shuddered deeply, putting a shaking hand to his forehead.

"That was too close for comfort," he said. "I thought we were going to get caught."

"But we didn't," Kakashi said, stretching, "and that's the most important thing. We even learned that this village doesn't hate Shifters. We could stay here until your leg heals."

Tenzou coughed as he took another drag on his roll.

"You have no idea how enticing that sounds, Hatake," he grumbled. "If you two want to explore the village, I'm going to finish this and go to sleep." His words were already slurred with the effects of the powerful painkiller he held in between his first and second fingers.

Sakura stood up and kissed his temple, then beckoned Kakashi with a hand for him to follow her out. He did so as a human, still not entirely certain how many people in this village were not afraid of Shifters.

As he and Sakura walked (closer together than they would have were they bound, surprisingly), Kakashi saw several other people wearing Shifters' necklaces and so was able to markedly relax.

The village was large, more like a town in the middle of nowhere, in a place where knights obviously couldn't reach. Kakashi wondered why that was so.

"Let's get some lunch," Sakura said, pointing to a small tavern off the side of the half cobbled, half dirt road.

She led the way inside, and as soon as they sat down in a booth, a plump woman with a huge bust came to take their orders.

"What can I get for you, dearies?" she asked politely.

"A bottle of beer to share and some lamb roast, two orders, please," Sakura said in response.

"Coming right up," the woman said, and as soon as she was gone, Sakura turned her attention to the Shifter opposite her.

"You kissed me in the ditch," she said bluntly.

"So I did," Kakashi said.

"Of your own free will," Sakura continued.

"So I did."

"Does that even mean anything to you?" Sakura asked, and his gaze snapped up to her face. He'd considered it every single moment he looked at her this entire journey.

"I don't know," he said honestly. "You could say I'm afraid to call it anything other than a spur of the moment peck."

"That spur of the moment peck left me wanting to tackle you and kiss the life out of you," Sakura retorted, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Are you telling me not to do it again?" Kakashi asked.

Sakura glared at him.

"I'll take that as a yes," he continued, before his next comment was cut off by her lips.

She was leaning over the table between them, her fingers cupped under his jaw, and after about five seconds, she sat back and regarded him with a cagey eye.

"You can take that as a no, you scrap," she said.

The woman set their beer before them and poured them each a tall glass. Kakashi gulped it down and relished in its fire, the fire that was overriding the one that had kindled from Sakura's kiss.


	10. He Drinks the Wine and Starts to Fall

A/N: Muhahahaha, they say always pay attention to your dreams, no matter what. Here's a bit of foreshadowing for you hungry pup-dogs.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

**Shifting Life  
****He Drinks the Wine and Starts to Fall**

The lamb was delicious. Sakura couldn't cook like that. She'd made her own lamb before, but _Kami_, _saffron_? How in the world did this rusty little place get it?

As she munched happily away on the lamb in her mouth, she noticed Kakashi was nursing his nearly finished drink. He really could hold his liquor (she had never succeeded in getting him drunk _ever_, even after nearly three bottles of wine), and he really liked it usually. Someone passing them on the road had once pointed and said, "Hey, it's that alcoholic who beat that old guy's ass last night!"

Generally meaning in a drinking contest, because a bar brawl where Kakashi would lose his temper and shift would do no one any good.

Sakura often wondered if it was just plain impossible for Shifters to get drunk. Now was not one of those times. Kakashi had not touched his lamb leg.

"What?" she asked, sitting up from her hunched position. "Not raw enough for you, flea bag?"

He looked up at her sharply, his eyes lingering over her lips, actually, and her white teeth that flashed a precarious smile at him. Then he raised one of the side potatoes to his mouth on a fork and snapped it up.

Sometimes, "snapping it up" was used as an idiom, but not in this situation. Sakura watched in fascination as Kakashi's mask vanished, his tongue flicked out, and with a small wolf's growl, the potato flashed into his mouth. The click of his teeth as he bit down was audible even across the table.

"Kami, you're beautiful," Sakura said, resting her chin in her hand.

And there was that hateful mask. But only for a moment. It seemed as though he finally decided he was hungry, and pulling his plate towards him, immediately began to dig in.

"We should bring something back for Tenzou," he said thickly in between bites. Sakura hid her bubbling snicker with her hand. "What does he like?"

"Nothing too heavy for him," Sakura said. "Maybe some beef and rice."

Kakashi grunted his agreement, making Sakura snicker again. "I feel so much better, now that we're unbound," she said.

Kakashi abruptly stopped chewing. He looked up to regard her warily, swallowing what was in his mouth before speaking. Sakura suddenly felt like she'd spoken out of turn; the way he was staring at her was as though he was her father and she'd caused him great disgrace. "What do you consider me?" he asked slowly, as if he might confuse himself by speaking too quickly.

"I'd like to consider you something other than a protector," Sakura said meekly. "I mean, can't you be both?"

"Both what?" Kakashi asked.

"Friend _and_ protector."

He nearly choked on his drink and held his fingers to his nose, clearly having gotten some of the dark beer up it.

"Why is that so surprising?" Sakura asked, affronted. "I've always loved you—I'm fairly certain I made that obvious—and the least you can do is be my friend after all these years now that you don't have to feel things through my body and..."

She bit her lip.

That came out sounding very lewd and very inappropriate, especially since she was considered a lady by social standards.

"I don't consider practically molesting you in prison being _friendly_," Kakashi said bitterly, wiping his face free of frothy beer. "And if that's the case, then you've got Tenzou to be _friendly_ with."

"That's not what I mean!" Sakura all but shrieked, slamming her palms down on to the table. Several Shifters, twittering with their human companions, looked up from their own food to regard her before returning to themselves. "You know what I mean, you ass," she continued more quietly, sitting down.

"Do I?" Kakashi bit out. "If I recall correctly, I didn't start that little bout we had in the cell."

Sakura crossed her arms and looked away with a huff.

And then Kakashi smiled. The first true smile she'd ever seen him smile. It was wide and almost mischievous, a silly grin that was even more natural than the ones he gave at the pleasure of petting.

"You would make an excellent Shifter," he said, and leaned across the table to kiss her cheek. And as he leaned down close to her ear, his breath fanning across her neck and jaw, he whispered, "And for what it's worth, I think I'm beginning to understand what exactly it is that you humans call love."

He gave her a sharp nip on the earlobe with slightly pointed teeth before hoisting himself away from the table and leaving the tavern altogether.

Sakura could only sit in a state of shock.

That was the single most beautiful, erotic, enticing, appetizing thing he'd ever said to her, _ever_, and at the touch of his sharp wolf-human teeth on her ear, she could feel a warm wetness stirring somewhere below her midriff.

She leaned her head against the table.

Oh Kami. This was how Tenzou made her feel.

--

She'd bloomed back into the blossom he knew her to be. The blossom he'd protected for the past twenty years. The blossom he, admittedly, had fallen in love with the first time she landed a punch across his jaw, effectively shattering it when she was fourteen. (Tsunade had a rough time piecing that mess back together again, and a lot of Kakashi's crushing power was gone because of it. It was why he gave himself such huge fangs.)

He'd die for her. Do anything for her. And now, thanks to Tenzou, a Shifter was beginning to be able to express a human emotion like love.

And it felt so good, he just wanted to howl until his lungs fell out.

He was quite proud of what he did in that quaint little tavern, reaching across the table and kissing her like that, giving her a little bite to get his point across. It was all he could do not to resume what he'd been doing to her in prison.

He wondered how Tenzou would react if he was told. Would he be relieved? Feel snubbed? Glad? A mixture of any or all?

He didn't really know why he tried to hide his love of Sakura for so long. Even if he had known she loved him in return, he doubted he would have reciprocated at all. It was just some instinct, like the Itch and the Pains, that told him what to do and when to do it.

This new instinct he was experiencing, his inner self was beginning to refer to as the Fire.

_It's like alcohol, but better._

Kami, yes. So much better.

Just the simple act of eating with her now had escalated into something profound. He adored every minute in her presence, and the only reason he had left the tavern was because he was teasing her. If he gave himself a choice, he'd be right back inside, kissing her brains out.

"Hey, Kakashi! Wait!"

That was her.

He turned around as she rushed up to him, and he stared at the breathless woman before him, her cheeks red from having had to run a block straight.

She had in her leather food sack Tenzou's meal. The smell was simple, but telltale.

"Where are you going?" Sakura asked, linking her arm with his in a friendly manner as they walked. He didn't mind.

"I was thinking about going back to the inn," he said.

"Tenzou said we could explore the town!" Sakura said, looking up at him. "Don't you want to?"

"Out of habit," Kakashi replied, "no. I kind of want to sleep."

"Well," Sakura said, "I'm still full of energy. I'm going to stay out a while. Is that okay?"

"You're asking me permission?" Kakashi asked, perturbed, looking down at her curiously. "You're my mistress still, bound or not. I still take orders from you."

Sakura looked a bit shocked that he'd said he was still willing to follow her, then she collected herself and sniffed. "Fine. I'm going to stay out for a while. You can go back to the inn and sleep."

Kakashi smiled and nodded, then ruffled her hair before taking off as a sparrow in the direction of their little room. He would flit through the window and sleep on the floor without waking Tenzou.

--

_There's a certain quality of the air in the room that Kakashi finds he doesn't like. It's as though the air is shimmering in a massive heat wave, or as though it is on fire. He can't really see straight, and finds that when he speaks, sound is distorted as well._

"_You awake, Tenzou?" he asks, and his voice comes out raspy and dizzy, as though it too is on fire or as though Kakashi is very, very sick._

_Tenzou doesn't move. The reek of death and poison touches Kakashi's tender wolf nose. He reels in shock and then feels pain—oh, such pain!—ripping all throughout his body. Invisible claws tear into his flesh, invisible wings beat at his side, bruising his bones, invisible beaks send streaks of red from his gut across the floor._

_And then there is a burning sensation prickling beneath his skin and he finds himself_

retching all over the floor. He was crying too, which, in all his years, he didn't remember doing. He was a human (which probably explained his unusual, unfathomable tears), and his fingers were burning with the contents of his stomach. His mind was reeling and the room was doing a faint swagger in front of his eyes, causing him to retch and cry again. It was like he was swallowing sand, mouthfuls and mouthfuls of sand, and his mouth felt just as dry as that sand. Soon his stomach was empty.

Instinctively, his body desired to lap up what he'd just expelled, but he'd never had a bout that tasted so _foul_. Eating that would surely kill him.

"Kakashi, are you okay?"

That was Sakura's voice.

"Where is he?" Kakashi hissed. "Tenzou!"

"He's right here, Kakashi," Sakura murmured, tired concern in her voice. "What's wrong?"

"He was dead!" Kakashi said quietly, skirting his sick to come to her and press his wolf's head into her hands. "I smelled death everywhere!"

"Shh," Sakura cooed, kissing his forehead. "Hush." She slipped from the bed to the floor and pulled the wolf bodily into her lap where he lay, curled tightly against her stomach.

"There were gryphons and shadebane and it felt like it was real," Kakashi stammered. "But it wasn't just a normal dream. It was like... I don't even know! But if felt so goddamn real, Sakura!"

The sheets of the bed shifted suddenly, and Tenzou grunted softly in his sleep. He'd been sleeping since Sakura woke him up for him to eat, to at least get some nourishment in him before he slipped off back into that realm of sedation that single opium smoke had brought him. He turned over and rubbed his face.

"Whass goin' on?" he slurred, wrinkling his nose at the smell of sick.

Sakura kissed his mouth when it was close enough. "Kakashi had a bit of a bout, that's all," she said.

"A bout, eh?" Tenzou asked. It seemed like with each passing moment, he was becoming more and more awake.

Alive. Kakashi felt himself relaxing into Sakura's embrace.

"Yeah," Kakashi whispered. "A bout."

--

Morning came, and with that morning came a dire need to do something to protect himself. A thought immediately came into Kakashi's mind as he mopped up his sick from the night before.

_Make yourself immune to Shadebane._

_That's crazy,_ he retorted, scrubbing the floor with a bit more vigor than was necessary.

_It's not. You can make the cherry laurel wine. Just keep adding 'Bane to it as the days go by. Think about it. You want to protect them, don't you?_

Kakashi threw his glance over to Sakura and Tenzou, who were still asleep. His eyes softened at their embrace, and his hand over the soaked cloth slowed in its work, just so he could watch them.

If Shifters believed in perfection, that would have been it. A perfect moment watching two perfect humans in perfect love and perfect trust.

_This feeling you have for them is neither human lust nor Shifter hate,_ his mind continued. _It's love. Loyalty. A sense of belonging that you _know_ you need more than anything in the world. Tenzou asked what you would do if Sakura were to be gone, and you said you would die. Now ask yourself the same question regarding Tenzou._

Kakashi thought a moment. _Well,_ he mused, _if Tenzou were to die, I suppose Sakura would rot from the inside out, and I would suffer with her._

_You're connected,_ his mind said, _bound, by something stronger than deep magic. You're bound by love to them. You love them. The both of them. Human or not. Former knight or not. You love them with such a passion that you would throw your instincts out the window for them and die. Because you know that instinct to live is as strong as the rumors of betrayal go, and yet you would go against that drive._

"When did this happen?" Kakashi whispered, still gazing intently at the two humans peacefully sleeping.

_It may not have been love then. It may have simply been Shifter's loyalty and following and your wolf nature to form a pack. But now it is love, and that is all that matters. Make the cherry laurel wine and drink it._

Kakashi rinsed the rag in the bucket of water next to him and hung it on the windowsill to dry. Then he rummaged quietly through Sakura's pack and withdrew the jar of cherry laurel water and the much smaller, deadlier jar of Shadebane. Then, using his tin cup, he mixed the two together.

The Shadebane, a purplish oil that would burn his skin if he touched it, mixed with the clear laurel water to create a reddish wine that looked and smelled of blood, with a dusty consistency like a riverbed when its sand is kicked into the water and floats, ever so gently, to the bottom.

This ratio of Shadebane to laurel would bring no reaction out of Kakashi's body. He needed his body to attack itself and then form proper defenses before he could move on. So he added another drop of Shadebane, and the mixture grew darker, more nauseating and sinister.

He downed it in a few quick gulps, and sparks flashed before his eyes as soon as the wine dropped into his stomach. He felt dizzy and sick, and when he tried to stand, the room spun and he ended up crashing into the night stand, knocking over the dinner dish Tenzou had used last night and shattering it.

Sakura and Tenzou woke up at the crash and Sakura was up and out of the bed like a cat sprung after a mouse. When he collapsed, he was there to crumple into her arms. His eyes flickered to catch her image. She was wafting in and out of his vision like a scent on the air might fluctuate, but Kakashi found he could smell nothing at all save for the toxic wine on his tongue. She was speaking his name, screaming it, but Kakashi could not hear. He was fighting his own battle and was concentrating much too hard on winning to risk paying attention to the woman he was almost literally dying to protect.

--

"Kakashi! Kakashi, say something to me, dammit! Flea bag, open your eyes! Don't you dare pass out on me, you mangy scrap!" Sakura shouted, an arm poised beneath his shoulder while another was fisted in the collar of his shirt. "Tenzou, help me!"

Tenzou slipped out of the bed, favoring his injured leg as he helped half-drag, half-carry Kakashi onto the cushions of the second bed across the room. As soon as the Shifter was set on the sheets, Tenzou noticed the tin cup and jars in the corner, and jerked his head at them for Sakura to see.

"He didn't!" she gasped, rushing forward.

"What?" Tenzou asked, sitting at the foot of his own bed.

"He poisoned himself!" Sakura said, holding up the beaker of Shadebane. "Why would he do that?"

But Tenzou didn't have an answer. Shifter mentality was strange and foreign to him, and he could not even begin to grasp at it.

--

_Maybe that wasn't the smartest idea. I feel so weak right now._

_No. No, it worked! Your body feels weak, but don't you feel warm?_

_I'm under blankets._

Under blankets.

_Don't you feel anything at all? Are you sure it didn't work? Have you shifted?_

_I feel weak. That's all._

_But you haven't shifted!_

Mopping his face with a cloth.

Kakashi opened one eye. It burned, and he shut it again with a groan.

Warm lips on his cheek, and then his mouth caused him to open his eyes again. They still burned, but he forced them to stay open.

"Why did you do that?" Tenzou demanded hotly from where he stood poised behind Sakura on a pair of crutches. "Poison yourself, that is."

"I want..." Kakashi murmured, realizing it was Sakura who had kissed him and that it wasn't just his imagination. "I want... to become immune... to protect you... I..." He broke off with a fit of coughing, and rolled away from the moist cloth in Sakura's hand so he could cough to the wall and not to them.

"You what?" Tenzou asked, his voice still full of anger at what Kakashi had done. Kakashi could tell Sakura was only glad that he was alive.

Kakashi swallowed and turned back to them, sitting up even though his muscles screamed and began to shift in violent protest. He held the urge to shift at bay. "I want to be able to die..." he started, "for you."

He looked away again at the shocked silence his words had induced. "That rumor," he said, "about a Shifter killing his own brother... It's true. But I don't want that instinct. Not around you two. It's... love, isn't it?"

He looked tentatively back at Tenzou and Sakura again. They both looked as though they were trying to wake themselves from a dream.

"Be grateful," Kakashi said, and Sakura looked up sharply. "That's what I was always told. And I know why, now." He gave them both a smile.

Sakura swallowed, and Kakashi knew that swallow was only for controlling her tears. "Why?" she asked with a shaking voice.

"I'm part Shifter, part chimera, part human," he said. "Though I'm only human in spirit, not in body. And the potential in all three of those beings, which are all cousins to each other in some way—because to be human is to have a spirit on the inside of your body, and to be a chimera is to be the link between human and Shifter—can only be unlocked by the human spirit, I think." He gave them another smile, then stood. "So I am grateful to you, for unlocking my door."

And then Sakura, it seemed, could not hold her tears back any longer. She rushed into Kakashi's chest, and as much as he ached, he loved the feel of her there as much as he loved her, and he wrapped his arms around her and closed his eyes and drank in her scent. Then he opened them to see Tenzou, who was smiling so broadly Kakashi thought his face might split in two.

Kakashi opened one arm, and Tenzou limped forward and crushed the Shifter to him with those arms that smelled so much like old wood. For the longest time, they merely held each other.

When Tenzou finally had to let go, it was only due to his leg, and he sat on the bed with a thump. "I'm sorry," he said, and Kakashi looked at him, hesitant to let go of Sakura, who still clung to him, though her crying had stopped.

"Why?" Kakashi asked.

"I told you I thought you were an animal," Tenzou said sadly.

"You were a knight then," Kakashi said, shrugging. "In league with monsters."

"They really hurt you, didn't they?" Tenzou asked, folding his hands against his knees and looking at the far wall.

"Yes," Kakashi said.

"I nearly got you killed!" Tenzou whispered, and Kakashi saw that he too was on the brink of tears. It was another human thing he didn't understand. The Shifter cocked his head to one side.

"We're safe now," Kakashi said. "It doesn't matter anymore. Why are you crying? I don't understand what tears do."

Tenzou shook his head, trying to explain. "For a human, tears mean sadness or regret or... joy, in some cases."

Kakashi looked down at the sniffling woman in his arms and remembered the dream that made his human form cry from the pain.

"It'd be like a howl for you. It's our way of voicing our emotions to the heavens." He gave a faint smile.

Kakashi had never given a death howl before, but he'd heard them, long and low across the land, and he'd howled a sympathetic howl in return before Sakura would shut him up with a boot thrown at his face. He loved howling, but crying did not look like it was pleasurable. His perfect humans had their faces contorted with pain.

But he'd never had anyone howl in his name before either. No stories were told of him on the night air as the wolves sang their songs. He found himself merely wanting to howl, high and keening and lilting, in song, in prayer, for all the wolves of the world to hear. He wanted them to hear so that they might know the names Tenzou, Kakashi, and Sakura. Even if they only knew them as wolves, it would be enough, because all three of them would make fine wolves in their own little pack.

Then realization struck.

_A pack needs puppies._

Kakashi pried Sakura from him and pushed her toward Tenzou, who caught her before she tripped over him. Hopping up on the windowsill, perched there, Kakashi waved his hand in a brief farewell.

"Feeling much better," he said. "I think my plan is working. But I was just thinking that we might need some pups, so hop to it!" He gave them a cheeky smile before flying out the window as a silver-winged hawk.

--

"Kakashi just told us to have sex, didn't he?" Tenzou asked slowly.

"More specifically, to have sex to make babies," Sakura said, just as slowly. "Or... pups, as he called it."

"Did he just imply that we were like rabbits?" Tenzou asked, still trying to process what the Shifter had said. "Because the proper terminology would be kittens if he did."

"Probably. Shifter humor, most likely," Sakura said. Then she turned to Tenzou. "Shall we?" she asked, lacing her arms around his neck.

Tenzou gave her a knowing smile as he crawled over her, pressing her back into the pillows. "We shall," he murmured, before beginning to kiss her.

--

Kakashi was vaguely worried about Sakura having a child. Her family did often have complications—birthing was the cause of Shizune's death. But then he assured himself that the south would have excellent midwives (some races of chimera were legendary for their ability to help struggling mothers), that Tenzou would be an incredible father, and that Kakashi would be an uncle, just as incredible.

Because he viewed Tenzou as a brother, and Sakura as his dearest, dearest friend.

The only two real friends that he'd ever had.

Besides Genma, of course, though Genma didn't really count because the only thing that tied them together was the fact that they were both Shifters.

He'd shift into a horse and give that little boy or girl rides on his back every day, and he'd teach the child how to hunt and swim and do all sorts of things that most had forgotten how to do. What Tenzou couldn't do for it, Kakashi would take over as a Shifter who had raised Sakura from the time she was a baby. (Really, he gave a new meaning to the phrase "masculine mothering.")

How lovely life would be in their pack.

But the one thing that disturbed him was his dream. He'd never had any type of dream other than memories before to fuel his false hatred for Sakura and her family, but that nightmare was no memory. It seemed more like a premonition.

As Kakashi walked down the town's busy streets, he furrowed his brow. _I pray that it isn't,_ he thought, nibbling on his thumb. _I really hope it's not._

But something in his stomach burned, and it wasn't from the laurel wine.


	11. The Whip Comes down on Fields of Wheat

A/N: At long last, we get to see Tenzou's life story. Sort of.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

**Shifting Life  
The Whip Comes down on Fields of Wheat**

When Kakashi returned to the inn late that night, satiated after placating a pretty female tabby that was practically sticking her butt in his silver-furred face, he found Tenzou and Sakura curled in each other's arms, fast asleep with the moonlight from the window giving their naked skin a pearly sheen, sweat long dried.

In truth, Kakashi had needed to get out of the inn. At the thought of puppies beforehand, his thoughts immediately pushed Tenzou out of the picture to make room for him and Sakura alone, but he snapped at himself afterwards. A Shifter and a human would do no good. Human chimera weren't very common (if any existed at all). Wolf chimera and cat chimera, however, populated a large chunk of the country, so Kakashi had felt no qualms about bedding the feline he just had.

So he returned after his mind was well blurred by exhaustion and satisfaction, after he had washed the scent of musk out of his fur and skin, and he lay down on the cool floor as a wolf with a deep, penetrating sigh that split the darkness in two.

He hadn't bedded anything in around twenty years. The last had been a wolf just before he'd been bound, but he'd heard from the ravens that she (a pretty brown wolf with fox-like ears and a long tail) had died giving birth. As a consequence, her litter had not survived. His rediscovery of sex was quite relieving, to be honest, and now he was so exhausted that he was just willing to close his eyes and rest.

He awoke when Sakura lifted him off the floor with a great heave. He yelped in surprise at both the action and the morning sunlight that streamed into his face so suddenly, but Sakura, with all her monstrous strength, just squeezed Kakashi to her clothed breast and kissed the top of his head until he was squirming too much to hold on to anymore.

He landed with a thump as a human on his rear, and stared up at Sakura, eyes wide with confusion.

"Don't humans have a thing called loyalty?" he asked. "I thought you were with Tenzou?"

"Oh, you scrap!" Sakura said affectionately, crouching down to take his face between her hands and kiss each of his cheeks. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"You're welcome," Kakashi said with a laugh, pushing her away in a friendly manner. "Don't get so excited, though. It's not like I did anything."

"Are you kidding?" Sakura asked. Tenzou was awake and was sitting against the wall, his leg stretched out in front of him. He had a grimace on his face, and the scent of alcohol was in the air—no doubt Sakura had a whiskey cloth wrapped around his wound. "You let us make love, Kakashi. Beautiful, beautiful human love. And if everything goes well, I'm going to have a child!"

She kissed him again and then hugged him so tightly he almost had to wheeze for air. He managed to twist out of her embrace as a lithe ferret, and crumpled to the floor in a little ball before sitting upright as a man again and scooting away. "That was the plan, wasn't it?" he asked. "Hopefully you'll have a litter, not just one." He gave her a grin.

Sakura frowned. "You know how unlikely that is?" she asked, and he shrugged. "A human womb, especially a fragile one like mine, would have a lot of trouble holding more than one child."

Kakashi reached around and began rummaging through Sakura's pack again. He frowned when he didn't find what he was looking for. "What did you do with the laurel and the Shadebane?" he asked, looking up at her.

"You could kill yourself like that," Sakura said, her voice suddenly sour and angry. "You shouldn't even try."

Kakashi felt a flare of anger rising within him. "Just because you're my Mistress, and I follow your orders does _not_ mean I am your servant. I'm your _Protector_, Sakura," he snapped. "Your friend. Give me the laurel and give me the Shadebane. I know the limitations of my own body."

Reluctantly, she pointed to a spot under the bed, and Kakashi dragged out the two jars.

--

Over the next few weeks, Kakashi spent most of his time retching up poison or lying sick in bed, and Tenzou was with him the entire time (Doctor Hyuuga had not let him move around overmuch for fear of aggravating his leg). He was there to rub his comrade's back while he vomited acidic bile and blood into a bucket, feeling fur prickle sometimes beneath his fingers when Kakashi would involuntarily and spasmodically shift, and he was there to keep the cool cloth on Kakashi's forehead when he lay awake with fever.

Sakura was the only one exploring the city now, and she'd made friends with Doctor Hyuuga, who preferred to go by Neji among the group.

Finally, it was the day when Tenzou's leg bindings were to be cut away, and Kakashi's body had progressed so much with the Shadebane that in the mixture that day there would be no laurel at all. He would drink the poison straight.

First, Tenzou's bindings were cut by Neji's skillful hand. There was a thick scar down the man's shin, but other than that, there was nothing wrong. Then, all three humans watched with mounting concern as Kakashi took the vial of Shadebane to his lips, closed his eyes, and drank it down.

There was a moment of intense silence before his hand shook and he dropped the vial, which shattered at his feet. His shaking hands clutched as his throat as though he had swallowed something scalding hot, and he let out a horrible wheezing cough, nearly collapsing onto the bed. How he managed to hold himself upright was a mystery even to him. After several minutes where the humans watched with bated breath, he smiled at them and managed to speak.

"I don't think any other Shifter has tried that before."

Sakura rushed into his arms, and he groaned at the sudden ripping ache that shot through his limbs as though he were being torn apart by a hungry predator. His knees suddenly felt shaky and weak, where before he'd had them locked and strong, and he toppled back onto the bed, one hand over his mouth and one arm curled around his stomach as he tried to fight off a wave of nausea.

"There's a reason for that," he muttered, thankful when it subsided. "Ah... I ache." Then a strange pain, a wild, flamboyant pain, cycled through his system, and his muscles began to twitch violently. His spine cricked and bent and snapped, as did his arms and legs, and he let out a feral howl as his body went on a sudden mad rampage of shifting and clawing and scrabbling against the sheets. His fangs and nails tore apart the bed, pulling straw from the mattress as he rammed his constantly shifting shoulder against the wall. His muscles rent and reshaped themselves, his body snapped and crackled like the greatest of bonfires. Fear shot through his mind. Was he turning into a chimera, a hideous beast with no ability at all?

When he tried to scream, it came out as a dull groan with a thousand different voices. Feathers and fur prickled his skin at the same time, fangs of a cat filled with snake's poison dripped with his slaver. Long ears, fox's ears, flicked back and forth, one floppy and one straight. His claws flexed into the mattress and he screamed a strange, ethereal scream as his body gave one final jerk and he collapsed, unconscious.

--

"That was quite an unexpected reaction."

Murmurs, on the edge of awareness.

"I've never seen a Shifter so stupid as to try that."

A female voice. Harsh. Not Sakura's, but slightly older.

Silence. A piercing pain in the vein of his inner elbow. A groan (was it his?).

"Look's like he's coming around."

"Thank goodness!"

Tenzou's voice.

Silence. Nervous breathing. A small gasp.

"He's granted himself an incredible power! Tenten, come look at this!"

"What is it?"

Sakura's voice.

"He's still retained the ability to shift; however, it's become so highly sensitized that he can combine absolutely any number of beings into one body. In other words, he's a shape shifting chimera now. Look at his blood. It's darker than a Shifter's blood ought to be, and if we put some Shadebane on it... Look, it squirms and changes instead of dissolving like it would normally."

A pause.

Tenzou's voice: "That's disgusting."

"But highly useful."

Kakashi cracked open an eye. Fuzzy shapes shot across his vision like wispy tides as he tried to focus. A wash of pink was blocking the light of some lanterns.

"Kakashi? Are you okay?"

She was staring right at him, inches from his face. He closed his eye again and reached up to rub his forehead before sitting up and pushing Sakura out of the way.

"You're worse than I was when I thought you were sick," he said with a slight trace of humor in his voice. "I'm surprised you're not sniffing at my breath."

His lungs shivered—his _lungs shivered_—and he coughed violently, spitting up blood into the palm of his hand. He stared at it with wide eyes.

"My lungs," he whispered, "just shook like they were cold." His eyes darted up to meet Neji's, who was standing next to the brown-haired woman who was presumably Tenten.

Neji's white eyes narrowed as he gazed at Kakashi's chest. "They should be calm now," he said. "You're body's still getting over the change into its new form."

"New form?" Kakashi asked. "That thing you were just talking about—am I really a chimera?"

Neji shook his head. "A shifting chimera with human emotions. Quite like the bridge between all three species."

Kakashi looked at his hands. "A bridge...?" he asked quietly.

"Let me explain to you the extent of your new ability," Neji explained, his powerful eyes still seeing everything. "You can now add bones to your body or take them away. You can add muscle or sinew or anything you need—new limbs will be easy. Shifting into something like a gryphon will be like shifting into a wolf was before. Second nature. First nature. However, you can still retain your solid forms—if you refer to these new sets as liquid forms—and the best part for you will be that there is no longer a time limit on your shifting. You have gone for three days, and have not shifted once."

For a moment, all Kakashi could do was stare in shock. Then he nearly howled with joy. No more Itch! No more Pains! This was like the realization of a doubted dream!

He squirmed for a moment, trying and failing to contain his happiness. Then, altering his vocal chords with more ease than he'd ever had before, he opened his mouth as though to laugh and let out a high, joyous howl.

The humans in the room had to cover their ears to escape the nasty blast, but Kakashi was already up and trying out his new abilities—an extra wing here, feathers and fur there, human teeth laced with poison there—and he shouted again with joy.

"Enough already!" Sakura threw up her hands and Kakashi quieted, though a silly grin was still plastered on his face. "We get that you're happy, but you're going to make our ears explode!"

Kakashi turned to Neji. "Thanks, Doc," he said. "You just gave me the best news of my life."

Neji smiled weakly. "I could tell," he said, rubbing his ear.

Kakashi stretched, his new, much more powerful, lean, elastic body no longer popping or cracking as the joints slid into place. "Ah, I feel great!"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you two more things," Neji said. Kakashi turned to him. "The first is that Shadebane will no longer kill you. It will just give you a desire to shift, and in some cases, to kill."

Kakashi narrowed his eyes and nodded. "And the second?"

"I can only assume your lifespan has decreased a little."

Kakashi nodded again. He'd suspected as much.

--

Neji's house was on the southern edge of the town, rather large but rather empty and full of beds, acting as some sort of hospital. Kakashi could feel the presence of those who had died here, and prayed for their safe passage into the land of the dead if they had not gone already.

The doctor's news had him wiggling with happiness still as they all sat down to eat dinner. He could be anything he wanted for any amount of time. If he chose, he could be completely human or completely wolf—this was an idea so absolutely incredible that not even in his wildest dreams had he imagined it. He was really free. The decrease of lifespan was not a surprise at all--the amount of strain this new ability put on his body was unfathomable. His bone structure and organ systems would weaken until they would eventually collapse, and Kakashi would die. The only way to keep himself alive would be to stop shifting unless it was absolutely necessary, and that would be difficult in itself.

Tenten, Neji's wife, knew her way around curry, rice, and vegetables, and as they began to tuck in, she said, "You three are a pretty interesting group. What happened to you to bring you here?"

"You want our life stories?" Sakura asked.

Tenten shrugged. "Sure," she said. "If you're offering that. Do you want to go first?"

"I will," Kakashi said. He didn't know what made him say it. He had a sudden desire to make the humans understand, even if they already did. He wanted them to _know_ rather than just _realize_.

The humans put down their forks to gaze at him curiously. Clearing his throat, Kakashi began.

"I was born in the north. The far north, Sakura," the Shifter said when the woman snorted as though he were stating the obvious, "where it snows all the time. In the winter, it's always dark, and in the summer, it's always light, as though there's only one day in the entire year." Kakashi knew that a wistful look as passing over his face, but he didn't care. He hadn't thought about his birth land in years. "I don't really remember much about it, but I remember my father telling me stories when I was a pup about the ice bears and the seals that he lived alongside."

"Seals?" Neji asked. "Like, letter seals?"

Kakashi stared at him. "No!" he laughed after a moment when realization dawned on him. These people lived nowhere _near_ the ocean. "They're an animal. Here, I'll show you."

He stood and pushed back his chair, then became a spotted silver seal with long white whiskers and bright keen eyes. The humans, all of whom had never really seen such a creature, stared at him in shock. He became like them again, and sat down.

"I was brought farther south when I was very young--I don't remember the north that much at all. I lived on Lady Tsunade's territory until a handful of years ago, and have been with Sakura ever since." Then he smiled, and that smile said quite clearly that he refused to say anything else. But it was clear that smile was forced, and the humans could glean much more information from it than from any story that he could tell.

Tenten nodded slowly. "Sakura…?" she asked.

Sakura rubbed her chin. "I was born when Kakashi was fourteen. He's been with me through thick and thin, and he's taught me everything I know. Closest thing to a mother I've ever had, really. Mine died when I was born."

And that was all she planned to say, it seemed.

But when Tenten nodded at Tenzou, he just shook his head and gave a little grin. "I don't remember anything before I joined the knights," he said.

The lie on his breath was so ridiculously obvious, Kakashi thought everyone must be able to see it. But even Neji didn't seem to want to pursue the issue, lie or not, so the Shifter relaxed back into his seat.

The rest of dinner went on with silly little conversations that to the Shifter seemed meaningless, but he would soon come to realize that they were part of a ritual he was unfamiliar with, a ritual he had never partaken in before. It was that of supping together and sharing a meal properly over a table with good ware and ceramic dishes, of sharing the portions among friends without wondering when the next meal would come. He'd come to adore this ritual.

--

_Ash fumes in front of him, spilling into his throat and eyes, making him cough and tear and scream for his mother. He's never called her mother. He's always called her Honeysong, because her voice is as sweet as honey and it puts him to sleep on nights when he remembers his human family and doesn't want to (when he remembers the night the Shades came sweeping in to kill and eat them all), but this time he calls her "Mother!" with a frantic desire to find her fur and breathe in her flowery scent rather than the ash that surrounds him in a cloud._

_He stumbles onward through the dust and grime and airborne fire. His eyes smart. His back, broad for a boy of fifteen, has been burned. He was just able to escape the hut that collapsed from the knights' fire, and he knows that if there's a fire, he needs to make his way to the lake._

_He runs through the grass, almost helter-skelter in the mismatched directions his feet take him, until he sees the lake before him. The others are gathered there. Human boys and girls and women and men, and the chimera are with them. Honeysong is there, and he begins to rush to her until he sees what is happening to her._

_Honeysong is his mother. She is part human, part fox, and part bear, and the doctors say that she will not live over the age of thirty-five--she is thirty now. Tenzou first brought her to the doctor when he was thirteen and he saw her hack up blood while she was sewing his tunic. But now her normally lustrous golden-red fur, the fur that covers her body in place of a tunic, hiding the nipples of her breasts, is sticky with blood and burns, and the whip that is being taken across her back makes her bark with pain for every stroke._

_A knight holds the whip. Another beside him is speaking to the crowd. There are dogs beside the horses, surrounding and herding in the people of the village. Tenzou hides underneath some wheat, and peers through the grassy spikes. He listens._

"_This chimera bitch is getting beaten for housing the son of traitors to the King!" the knight who is speaking says. "She will die if he is not found!"_

"_No!" Honeysong is shrieking. "No! Tenzou is my son! He is my son!"_

"_Your village was burned because you have housed him," the knight says._

_The whip cracks down again. Tenzou feels fear grow inside of him. He runs. The dogs perk up and give chase. The knights light fire to the fields, and watch the villagers burn._

_Tenzou runs away from the fire, away from the burning village, away from his mother who he has known since he was small, who is dead. The dogs bark after him and chase him, but the barks are horrifying, unlike his mother's cheerful yip, and he screams. The breath flees his body, and he trips and falls, and the knights on their horses surround him and lasso him like he is a beast._

"_As punishment for your parents' leaving the Knighthood," one of the knights says, standing over him (Tenzou can only see his silhouette), "You will take their place, Yamato Tenzou."_

_Then the whip cracks down, and the brainwashing begins._

Tenzou woke with a gasp in a feverish sweat, induced by the illusion of the fire behind his eyes. Sakura was dead asleep beside him, and Kakashi was in the opposite bed. The cold moonlight blaring down into the bedroom set it in rigid contrast with Tenzou's nightmare-memory, and he shuddered.

"I knew you were lying," Kakashi said. Tenzou whipped up to look at him. He was leaning on his elbow and staring at Tenzou gently. "You had a dream-memory, didn't you?"

Tenzou looked away. "It's none of your business," he said. He clenched his fists into the sheets. Under the Shifter's penetrating stare, it was difficult to not say what he wanted to, so he closed his eyes tightly and took a deep breath.

Several minutes went by, and Kakashi's stare did not break. Finally, Tenzou said, "I was forced into the Knighthood, if you must know. But that's all I want to say. Don't ask me for anything else."

But Kakashi was hearing none of it. "Forced?" he asked. "Where are you from?"

"Kakashi!" Tenzou snapped. "I told you, no!"

Kakashi sighed and stretched out on the bed. Tenzou could hear him chuckle softly as a response to joints that refused to crack as though they were finely oiled metal. Then there was silence for a time. Just when Tenzou thought Kakashi must have fallen asleep again, the Shifter asked, "Are you nervous about being a father?"

Tenzou's gaze shot up to look at him once more. Kakashi's eyes were gleaming with a light that didn't belong in a human. "We'll wake Sakura if we keep talking," Tenzou said quietly, averting his own eyes.

"Then let's go outside," Kakashi persisted. He slid out of bed while a tunic flashed into existence across his body, grabbing Tenzou's own from a coat rack and tossing it to him. Tenzou put it on and got up, looking wistfully at Sakura before Kakashi cleared his throat and jerked his head in an order to follow him.

The air outside was crisp and clean with autumn fast approaching, and already the grass of the moorland was dry and brittle. The harvest would begin soon, Tenzou remembered wistfully. He recalled hauling wheat across his back as a young man and piling it into carts back to the village, where the mothers would bake bread or hang the bushels up to dry and the fathers would make beer and celebrate. He remembered he was happy working with the grain.

But there was no wheat here, just crackling moorland grass.

He frowned and leaned his forearms against the wooden railing on the porch of the house, and Kakashi, nimble and balanced as he was, sat on it like a lazy cat.

"Being a father isn't really so bad," he said. "I hated it, sure, but you'll make a fine sire."

Tenzou felt heat radiate across his face, and he turned to the Shifter in annoyance. "You know, wolf language doesn't exactly help, Kakashi. Humans don't call fathers 'sires.'"

"Sorry," Kakashi said, but Tenzou knew by the lilt of his voice that he didn't really mean it. Whatever--neither did Tenzou. He actually found Kakashi's wolf language quite endearing, and knew the Shifter realized that.

"Why did you hate it?" Tenzou asked after a short pause.

Kakashi gave him a pointed look. "I had to raise _Sakura_," he said. "As a _teenager_. _And_ she was my Mistress!" He threw his hands up in despair. "It was ridiculous! I had to take orders from her, a little whining chit, and at the same time keep her alive to keep myself alive. I hated her for a really long time for keeping me in bondage like that."

Tenzou laughed. "Are you saying fatherhood is like bondage?"

Kakashi shook his head. "If there weren't some rewards, I would have killed her, even if it killed me, just to be rid of her. I watched her grow, Tenzou. She came to _me_ when she got her first cycle, even when I hardly knew what to do. She taught me things about gentleness and care that as a wild Shifter I would have never known. When she opened her mouth to scream at me or when she raised her hand to slap me, or her foot to kick me, it was hard not to smile."

Tenzou was listening with avid fascination now.

"You know," Kakashi continued, "when you first took her"--he failed to notice Tenzou's red face--"I was really angry."

"I gathered," Tenzou murmured.

"And it wasn't just because it hurt like blinkin' hell," the Shifter said, making his human companion turn an even darker shade of red than before. "It was because it was Sakura. The girl I watched grow up."

They were quiet for a few moments. Suddenly, realization dawned on Tenzou. He turned to Kakashi full on in surprise. "You're in love with her!" he exclaimed.

"Yeah," Kakashi said with a short laugh. "I thought you knew that already."

"No, no," Tenzou said, "that's different from _loving_ her. Anyone can love anybody else--I love you as a brother, but I'm not _in_ love with you, see? When you're _in_ love with someone, you lust after them too. You want to do anything for them, but there's more than just that."

Kakashi nodded in quick understanding. "Are you threatened by me being in love with her? She is your mate, after all. I'm not here to start a fight between alphas, Tenzou, because I didn't think our pack worked in a hierarchy that way. I'm just here to protect you and Sakura and your pup until the day I die."

"I'm not threatened," Tenzou whispered hoarsely. "I'm just scared."

"Of…?" Kakashi prompted.

And his hugest fear came tumbling out. "Why haven't the knights come after us yet?" he asked. "We're wanted criminals--our sentences would be death! They should be combing the country for us! They should be burning villages, burning people"--he gripped the railing so tightly his knuckles were turning white--"going after the people who knew us! I can't go through that again…to lose everyone I care about again…!"

The tears were running down his face even as he tried desperately to hold them back. His mind replayed the scene of his home village being destroyed over and over and over again. His body felt weak suddenly, and he sank to his knees, trying to push the memories away, but they burst like popping flame before him as his shoulders gave a great heave under the pressure of sorrow and fear.

Kakashi was beside him in an instant, having never seen this side of Tenzou before, and rubbed his back consolingly. The quiet sobs eventually stopped, leaving only cracked breaths and an urgency to tell.

"I want to know what happened to you," Kakashi demanded, and, taking a deep breath, Tenzou recounted to him all that he remembered of his life before his mother's death.


End file.
